


The Sound of Bones

by Cookie_Brooke



Category: Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Cartoon 2018)
Genre: Blood and Injury, Canon-Typical Violence, Cuddling, Family Bonding, Hurt/Comfort, Injury Recovery, Near Death Experiences, Night Terrors, Self-Sacrifice, Sick Character, Xenophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-29
Updated: 2020-12-30
Packaged: 2021-01-06 03:54:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 22,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21220136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cookie_Brooke/pseuds/Cookie_Brooke
Summary: All three turtles felt their blood run cold at the sound of a sickening guttural *CRACK* from far...far beneath where they were hung.They froze, and the city seemed to fall silent, if only for a moment.





	1. Crackle

Raph felt mystical crackling energy run through the veins of his forearms as his tonfas clashed together in his fists. It traveled up to his shoulders, head and his eyes began to glow while he flashed his snaggletooth to the enemy. The mutant eel he and his brothers were fighting hissed and arched its long noodley back, causing a few florescent lights to explode around them. Leo, Mikey and Donnie braced for the incoming shards but were shielded by their head honcho’s double armored shell. The youngest turtle darted around the eldest and let his kusari-fundo let loose, its cackle lighting up the office floor in a bright blaze, causing the eel to shriek as its skin sizzled. 

“Mikey, wait!” Donnie called out but was abruptly cut off when the fire alarms sounded and the sprinkler system activated, dousing the heat rather quickly, they were only mystical flames. “We’re in its conduction field!” The purple clad turtle shielded his head from the drizzle as the eel grew in size with its frilled fin began to whip around rapidly, glowing white hot. 

“AAHH DANGER NOODLE!!” Mikey retreated to the not as safe vantage point behind his brothers’ shells given they were soaked.

“ROASTED REPTILE ANYONE??!!” The eel bared a Cheshire grin and released an electric shockwave from its body.

“PORTAL!!!” The turtles screamed as Leo ripped a hole in the floor with his sword that they fell through mere seconds before the shockwave could fry their carapaces to crisps.

The next moment, they found themselves landing on the roof of the skyscraper which from the ground seemed to touch the now dawning sky. It was almost time to split, how had they been fighting this eel for so long…? Well…Raph thought to himself, they did pull an all-nighter waiting outside a Gamestart store for a new Lou Jitsu remake pre-order when they’d caught sight of the mutant heading to Times Square. Donnie had figured that the eel was looking to absorb the electrical output that lit up all of the monitors in the square. Why Times Square and not a power station. Mikey had cutely suggested that it was because it was all pretty and sparkly, and everyone just went along with it. Some oozequito turned mutants were only so smart…

“You’re welcome my dear brothers for saving our lives!” Leo jeered coyly with a devilish smile, hoisting his blade over his shoulder in a triumphant pose, the guise dropping with a loud crackling snarl emanating from a melting generator several feet away.

“Not quite safe yet, Leon! Donnie, is there any way to get Shockey Soba not…uh…zappy??” Raph fumbled slightly on the question, readying his stance to fight again alongside the other three, his mystical form needing to recharge. 

“You mean draining its electrical discharge?”

“Not the time for being snippy, Einstein!” Leo barked, the eel manifested itself in pure electrical energy, taking physical form.

“Tesla would be a more fitting descriptor!” Donnie quickly fiddled with his wrist console, and a handy dandy gadget popped off his battle shell, quickly extending and anchoring to the roof. Four extra little discs popped off the shell as well, and he tossed three of them to his brothers. “We need to attach these remote electrodes to its body so I can fire up the coil!” 

“You got it, D! One pepperoni pizzap comin’ up!” Mikey launched away from the pack, drawing the eel’s attention as it gained its footing and snapped its maw giving chase after the lithe box turtle. He effortlessly twisted and turned around poles and pipes, climbing to the top of the spire as the other turtles flanked the remaining three sides. 

Donnie rolled his eyes and propped himself up on the tip of his bo, attaching the electrode to the other tip before using the hammer’s thrusters to send him flying high, the rising sun haloing his cranium.

Leo simply dashed forward and threw the electrode like a Frisbee, expertly boomeranging around and planting itself on the eel’s thigh. 

Raph, falling behind, risked getting electrocuted by grabbing the eel’s tail right before Mikey became fish food. Using his stealth training, he attached the electrode quietly as the tail slipped through his six-fingered dual grip. 

Two electrodes down, two to go. Codename Pruple Rain literally rained from the sky, narrowly missing those venomous jaws before jabbing his bo against the eel’s chest, getting flung away by a wayward flailing arm as the eel looked down and realized its new sticky circular modifications. 

“Hey Mr. Danger Noodle!!” The high pitch voice led the eel to look straight up, seeing the orange clad turtle doing a one handstand on the spire’s tip. The eel yelped at the sharp sting as he was bopped on the snoot with a bright red electrode. “BOOPED YA!!” 

“LET ‘ER RIP, DONNIE!” Raph cried out confidentially as the four regrouped together and the mutant prepared another shockwave.

“EAT AMPERES, YOU SON OF A GLITCH!” The tesla coil contraption began spinning rapidly, and when the eel fired its bolts, the current redirected to the central rod and the fish mutant shrieked as it began to grow weak and shrink down in size, crumpling to the rooftop in a heap of rotten smelling fish scales, the glow dying completely.

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“AWW YEAH!!” Leo cheered as they all shared a four-way high three. 

“Donnie, you were amazing!!” Mikey bear hugged his whiz-kid brother, feeling pride and adoration fill his little being.   
“Ditto on that D, you really came through back there!” Raph wrapped his eldest younger brother in a head lock, noogeying his goggles off.

“AAGH RAPH quit it!” He laughed, feeling a honeyglow brush along his cheeks. “I can’t believe it actually worked! That piece is still in alpha, I haven’t ever tested it.”

“Yeah, who’da thunk that the day would arrive when Donnie wouldn’t screw up a mission with one of his inventions.” Leo shrugged before lightly punching his twin in the shoulder, “Great job, I guess.” He smirked

“Dear Nardo, is that hint of humility I’m detecting in your tone, because I couldn’t quite catch that, would you mind repeating?” Donnie leaned down, over exaggerating the gesture of bringing a hand to cup his lack of ear. 

“Ha! Don’t push your luck, nerd.” 

“Guys! We gotta hurry, the sun’s almost up and we’ll miss the Lou Jitsu pre-order!!” Mikey cried out, bouncing up and down. “Donnie! You gotta fly us there!” 

“Sorry Michael, but that’s a no-go, my pack took some hits in that fight, and I highly doubt it could carry all of us in its condition.” He examined his battle shell, mentally noting the damages he’d repair later. “And you all used up your mystic energy for the time being, we’ll have to take the sewers on foot.” 

“AWW I don’t wanna walk! Maybe we could skate there instead! Let’s make it a race! Last one there has to do the chores in the lair!” 

“Let’s actually make it to the tubes first, Miguel, but you’re so on!” The two youngest turtles playfully butted their foreheads together with a competitive fire in their eyes. A fire so strong you could hear the embers literally crackling! …

…wait a minute…

An electric hiss sounded, but not from the eel. Raph turned around, seeing that it was from Donnie’s machine, its metal coil now burning white hot. Donnie was the second to notice, eyes widening at the sight of the internal structure buckling from the heat and pressure. It was too much energy stored in one place! It was going to overload!

The eldest brothers grappled onto the youngest, with only three seconds to haul them away from the danger. Raphael roared, “HIT THE DE-“

\--

\--

\--

\--

\--

\--

They all lost consciousness in sync for 2 seconds due to the sudden pressure change around their skulls when the blast came. 

When the turtles regained focus, they were falling.

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As they fell, Donnie’s analytic brain slowed time and began processing statistics and information at a breakneck pace.

They were falling,

They were falling from the New York Times building, the tallest in times square at 52 stories,

They were falling 52 stories at sunrise, without any form of disguise.

They were falling 52 stories at sunrise, in their full turtle mutant glory, in the heart of the busiest area of NYC…

…and they had set off a bomb…

NYPD would be on the scene in *SECONDS*. 

The chances of survival of such a fall were surprisingly likely for mutants like them, if they braced properly and tucked into their reinforced shells. 

The chances of being conscious despite that however, were slim to none.

…they could not afford to all be out cold in broad daylight in the middle of Times Square when an army of SWAT, bomb patrol, and federal agents arrived on the scene…

…What would the humans do? Dad had told them stories as children. He didn’t like to admit how much they had affected him…because he was soft. Dad had told them if the worst case, they should hide in their shells for protection…but Donnie’s was soft, at least before his upgrade. 

-no, focus, there’s not enough time, no areas of leverage, this was no time to be pondering his…damaged…battle…shell…

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The brothers screamed as they hurtled towards the ground.

…until they weren’t…

Sputtering rockets propelled the orange, red, and blue clad turtles towards one of the advertisement displays, slowing their fall to a halting stop. 

Raph looked at his arms, noticing two segments of Donnie’s armor shell latched onto his heavy boned wrists. Leo and Mikey had the other two out of the four segments. 

“One…two…where’sthree…Donnie…where’sDonniewhereishe??” It was a quiet anxious whisper that all trailed into a single unpausing breath, the leader’s eyes darting all over the sign, trying to find-

-All three turtles felt their blood run cold at the sound of a sickening guttural CRACK from far...far beneath where they were hung.

They froze, and the city seemed to fall silent, if only for a moment. 

\--

\--

And then…

A second impact, a cacophony of crumpling aluminum and glass shattering into micro crystals, followed almost immediately by the shrill cry of a car alarm and the roar of several dozen screaming humans.


	2. Drip...Drip...

They began to feel the warmth of the sun across their scales, and with it, the instinctual urge to remain still and conserve energy. Their heat lamp in the lair was nice, but of course nothing could compare to the real deal. The feeling that came next was also instinctual, less in a biological sense, but more so heavily embedded in taught routine. The dust and debris from the blast wafted softly over their forms, and when it sunk lower to the ground level and dissipated, the three remaining brothers had disappeared into the shadows of the New York Times building, shakily making their way down to the ground. 

They were silent up until the point they were peeking out of the alleyway, seeing a flood of people all with phones recording and broadcasting everything they saw. The crowd of people only parted when high pitch sirens and flashing red and blue lights danced across Times Square.

During that figurative parting of the Red Sea, Leo was the one who caught sight of Donnie first, or part of him, the car his twin had landed on further obscured his form. The slider recoiled into the alleyway, feeling bile rise in his throat at the thought of the soft shell in pieces like his battle shell. However, the thought was dampened by logic, as there wasn’t a massive splattered pool of blood running down the car’s hood. His brother was likely still in on piece. 

Mikey was halfway shrunken into his shell, flinching as they heard a bomb squad break down the front doors of the building they had fallen from. He clutched his piece of Donnie’s battle shell close to his plastron that had saved his life. Tears welled up in his eyes, his padded knees shaking. “Is…i-i-is Donnie…d-“

“Don’t you DARE finish that question, Miguel!” Leo snapped with a snarl that caused his youngest brother to sink further down with a whimper. 

“Don’t yell at your brother Leo!” Raph similarly snarled in the blue one’s direction, his anxiety growing into aggression. “We don’t know yet Mikey…but regardless, we’re not leavin’ him there with them.” He pointed out into the wide-open intersection, before peeking out again and surveying the area. His iron grip on the brick wall caused the material to crack under stress. He couldn’t bother to focus on reigning in his strength in that moment. His mind was swirling with his brother’s split-second decision, and berating his own species as an alligator snapping turtle. A single thruster on the battle shell was enough to save each one of them, save for himself, who might’ve hit the ground harder than he would’ve liked, but he could’ve made it out. But Donnie had chosen instead to give up his own thruster to ensure the leader would be safe, at his own expense. Why did he have to be such a huge hulk of uselessness? He should be able to protect his baby brothers, no matter what!

He snapped out of his thoughts when a large van came to a screeching halt right outside where they were standing. The flank of the truck was lined in emblazoned bold letters:  
ANIMAL CONTROL.

They could hear more and more vehicles arriving on the scene. At the sound of cocking rifles, Leo darted away, scrambling up the building and out of sight.

Mikey began to tear up more and Raph growled, “LEO, GET BACK HERE!” When his order went unheeded, his gripped his head and paced, doing an abridged version of his breathing exercises before calming down just enough to grab Mikey by the shoulders. “Look at me, kiddo, are you listening to me?”

A short quick nod was his only response.

“Good. Listen...I have to go get your brothers, okay? I need you to stay here, call Dad and April, and let them know what’s going on.” Raph instructed as calmly as he was able, and was met with an anxious mumbling whimper as Mikey darted his eyes from him to the end of the alleyway and back. “Ey ey, do you understand, Mikey? I need you to stay with me and tell me you understand.”

“B-But what if something happens, Raph?!” Mikey finally managed to ask, his scutes trembling. 

“Nothin’s gonna happen. I won’t let anything happen. I promise. Now are ya gonna call Dad and April?” 

He nodded quickly but quietly in reply.

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The animal control officer approached the alien creature with a snare pole, several other officers and SWAT team members closing in on the destroyed vehicle from all sides. A loaded rifleman was nearby, loading the barrel with high potency tranquilizer darts. The creature was unmoving for the most part. The onsite detective had quickly deduced by the broken flag pole lying on the ground that the alien had snapped it off in a snag during its fall. If it was connected to the bomb, and likely was, it should be dead. Gurgling coughs heavily laden with fluid were evidence of the contrary when a swath of dust particles rolled over them. 

The officer stepped closer with the pole, watching the green animal weakly shift, but fail and fall back into the position it had landed in, blood trickling down its leathery skin in multiple places. Some of the civilians they had pushed out with a perimeter began shouting obscenities and demanding that someone shoot the damn creature before it could hurt anyone or eat them. The crowd went ignored, as the lead federal agent in charge ordered a live capture. 

She loosened the snare into a wide wire loop, easing it over the mutant’s head, before pulling it taught, maybe a little too taught.

The turtle like creature wearing a purple bandana let out a weak, strangled, and distressed cry when the officer lightly pulled the pole.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A high-pitched whistling sound whizzed by as a long blade cut through the air, slicing clean through the snare pole and lodging into the asphalt road right in front of the officer. 

A green blur materialized and backhanded the would-be captor away with a feral snarl and seemingly glowing red eyes, though if one were to look closer, that effect was merely the creatures eye accent markings rather than the irises themselves. 

The crowd began to scream and flee as another mutant of almost identical appearance grabbed the blade’s hilt and lurched, pulling it from the crumbling ground before taking a defensive stance, teeth bared. It swiveled around, both hands grasping the odachi with a death grip, daring any one of the humans to get close. 

One of the police officers loaded his glock and took a step closer, to which Leo summoned his mystical energy again, causing the blade to glow and crackle with blue light. It was only good for making portals but the humans wouldn’t know that. 

“STAY AWAY FROM HIM!! GET AWAY FROM MY BROTHER!!!” Leonardo seethed, his own anxiety causing his limbs to shake, “I SWEAR TO GOD, IF YOU SO MUCH AS TAKE ONE MORE STEP I WILL GUT EVERY LAST ONE OF YOU WITH MY BARE HANDS!!!”

“DROP YOUR WEAPON AND PUT YOUR HANDS IN THE AIR!” The lead officer shouted back at him, most of the other officers had drawn their guns, all pointed right at him. Mere moments later, the chopping sounds of helicopter blades pierced the city skyline, hovering right over the turtles’ heads. Moments after that, the live feed of Leo’s fierce guarding was broadcasted on all of Times Square’s monitors.

Donnie coughed harshly again, keening loudly in agony, leading Leo to spit and hiss loudly at the police officers again, his sword still sharply poised as its bluffed targets continued to revolve. This time, he took a few tentative steps back towards the crushed car, never taking his eyes off the threat ahead of them. Splinter had always taught them to keep their opponents in sight at all times, but this time, Leo was finding every conceivable way to stave off looking at the sorry sight of his injured twin. He didn’t think he could mentally handle that on top of their current predicament under so much stress. 

Thankfully, he wouldn’t have to wait much longer, as Raph similarly hurled himself into the fray, covering Leo’s back shell to shell, causing the other civilians to begin panicking even louder. This monster was twice as large and covered in sharp scales and long claws. 

The eldest brother knelt down, blinking away the salt in his eyes as he gave Donnie a quick once over. He could barely handle a split second looking at the damage, so he just focused on his brother’s face, gently pressing his giant hand to Donnie’s cheek, rubbing his thumb against it. “Shhhhh…it’s okay, we’re here buddy…We’re gonna get you home and fix ya up, no prob.” He glowered lightly at the wire still clutching his baby brother’s jugular, so he used both hands to pry it off and toss it away clattering onto the ground. 

“Raph…how bad is he…?” Leo shuddered and kept his stance up, taking only a quarter of a second to cast a glance back. 

“He need’s the med bay...now…” Raph attempted to find purchase in Donnie’s limbs to cradle him, but his brother seized up with a sharp agonizing sob, causing the snapper to pull his hand back, now covered in clotting metallic blood. “Leo, portal, NOW!”

“I’m running low on juice, Raph, how big?” Leo’s tone shifted as the officers began to slowly advance. They were running out of time!

“Big enough, do it NOW!”

In the next split second, the police force shielded their eyes as a blinding light hit them. When it died down, a blue ring of fire circled where the monsters…and the car…had once been, now vanished into thin air.

\--

\--

\--

\--

\--

Mikey popped the manhole cover back on as quietly as possible, dropping into the sewer with not the smoothest of landings, but he could hardly care at the moment. He gasped seeing his brothers and the car underground, only a few feet directly below where the cops swarmed above. Being so low on mystic energy, Leo had to sacrifice distance for a portal large enough lasting long enough to swallow them up. Mikey ran up to Leo, who stumbled slightly, feeling a bit overwhelmed by using up his energy and finally being able to drop his guard. The small turtle caught him in a hug as his knees buckled. 

“Hey Mickey…” Leo breathed out tired and shallow, “You okay, bud?” 

“You scared me when you left, you dumb dumb…” Mikey nuzzled into his plastron.

“Yeah…that was pretty dumb dumb of me, wasn’t it?” The two jutted up at their purple brother’s ragged breathing, and Raph rushed to him. Mikey covered his mouth and couldn’t stop the tears flowing down his face at the sight of blood pooling in the crevice Donnie was seemingly nestled in on the car’s hood. 

Raph took a deep breath, psyching himself up. He wasn’t sure if Donnie could hear him, but he spoke quietly, “Hey buddy…we gotta get you home. You can’t lay on this car all day. I gotta move ya, man. I’m so sorry, hold on…”

The eldest brother had to block out the piercing shriek that he pulled from his brother’s lungs as he hefted him carefully into his large arms. Looking him over again, he grew lightheaded… Legs were not supposed to bend like that… Each subtle movement resulted in a wrenched sob, until the pain grew so great that he finally fell fully unconscious, his breathing steady but incredible shallow. 

“Let’s move quickly…we’re a long way from the lair and Donnie’s not got much time.” Raph briskly walked away, following the tags that Mikey had littered the sewer with, his brothers following behind. Mikey cast a glance at the stickers he had made. Tagging was against the law but his father and brothers had encouraged him to map out the entire sewer bit by bit with the stickers to make sure he’d never get lost on his way home. Looking at Raph, he noticed a light dripping of blood trailing off one of Donnie’s toes. His little heart panged with hurt, and he lagged back a bit. Leo noticed almost immediately and came to a brisk stop. 

He tapped on his own shell, “Come on up, Mikey, we can’t slow down, Donnie needs us.” Kneeling down, the box turtle quietly grappled onto his brother’s back, wrapping his arms around the collar of Leo’s plastron and hooking his legs around his brother’s elbows. The slider grunted lightly as he stood up again, jogging lightly to catch up with Raph as Mikey nuzzled his face into the crook of his shoulder. 

\--

\--

\--

\--

\--

It took a few agonizingly slow hours to make it to the entrance of the lair. They saw Splinter pacing, so odd to see him moving around so much. His tattered ear twitched and he spotted them. “My boys!” 

“Dad!” The three ran over to him, broken brother in tow. Miraculously, he was still breathing, but his smooth skin had turned a paler desaturated hue of its usual vibrant green. 

Splinter ran a careful hand over his son’s forehead, lifting his bandana to gauge his body temperature, and then running his fingers along his neck, detecting the weakened pulse from lack of blood to pump through his system. “Inside, quickly now. APRIL! Prep the med bay!”

“OH DEAR GOD!” April shouted in shock as Donatello was laid out flat on the table by Raph, who’s instincts were screaming at him to not let his brother go. They could now see the full scope of the damage. 

Donatello’s body was covered in deep blue and purple bruises, obscuring the pixelated markings that dotted his shoulders and thighs, one of which was broken in three places along the leg, leaving the other battered but internally unscathed. Micro glass shards littered his soft shell and back like mango worms infested the hide a starving Gambian dog. Blood dribbled from small cuts and lesions all along his side. The worst part although, had to be the misshapen form and contour of his entire torso. It was oblong, and shifting with every breath, not rigid like a shell should be. The cause…was sadly the most glaring injury. A massive, ugly and gnarled crack ran along his plastron. It stretched from the ridge of his left breast, crossing across his stomach before finally ending at the edge right above his right thigh. The crack oozed with thick marrow blood that had begun clotting. Hitting that flagpole had saved his life, but it had completely broken his plastron in two separate pieces. Thank the heavens it was the only break, and even more lucky, despite the crack severing the armor, the membrane of the skin and abdominal wall was still intact. 

If it hadn’t been, Donnie’s internal organs and intestines would have spilled fully onto the pavement, and he would’ve died, without a doubt, but he was alive. 

He was alive and that was a miracle on its own, and Splinter, was not going to let that miracle go to waste…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> baby got squished ;n;


	3. Plink...plink...

It was oddly silent in the lair. No skateboard kicking, no weight lifting, no video games, no Japanese game shows with scorpions…and obviously no lab explosions. The only occupied room in the lair 8 hours late into the night was the lit med-bay. 

Getting and keeping Donnie’s levels stable was a slow…precarious process. The other brothers cursed at their lack of attention given to even basic first aid that the soft shell had spent a significant amount of time trying to teach them. Aside from Splinter’s years of just experiencing life but not specifically that of a medical professional, Donnie had been the lair’s designated doctor. He had built the med bay and all of its equipment from scratch. But without him lucid or even conscious, he couldn’t help them. 

Splinter had gingerly treated the massive plastron break, cleaning away and patching the wound to staunch the bleeding for the moment so they could return to it later. Donnie was now laying on his side, and all hands except for Mikey’s were focused solely on carefully removing every single piece of micro glass shards from their brother’s shell. 

Mikey was barely holding himself together at the sight of the rust colored water buckets of once clean sterilized water and blood-soaked cloth, so instead, he was given the job of retrieval/disposal/moral support. When they needed a new tray to deposit the shards in, they would send Mikey out to dispose the old one safely and return with a new one. When he wasn’t retrieving rubbing alcohol, tools, or bandages, he was sitting in a chair next to Donnie’s head, on the opposite side of the work table. He endlessly brushed his hand over his brother’s head, so that should Donnie return to the land of the awake, his senses would tune to sense Mikey and keep him calm. 

Meanwhile, April was serving as a last-minute stand in Dr. Donnie. Having called in a favor from Sunita to fib to her rents about a sudden sleepover, she was staying the night in the lair, currently searching for any conceivable knowledge on the internet about surgery and medical care for both humans AND reptiles. 

\--

\--

\--

\--

\--

14 hours in…and the shell was finished, completely bandaged along with the rest of the smaller wounds.

Leo tiredly wiped the sweat from his brow, his mask now hanging around his neck. He looked to Mikey, who was sleeping less than soundly snuggled up to as close to Donnie’s head as he could get without actually lying on the table with him. Raph breathed a sigh of tired…tired but restless relief, resting a hand on Leo’s shoulder in silent support before lumbering over to Mikey and gathering him carefully so he could be tucked into his hammock. April followed behind, barely able to keep her eyes open. So, they rolled out a spare sleeping bag so she could stay in Mikey’s room. 

Splinter’s mind was lethargic, but his instincts would not allow him to be anything less than vigilant, not when his son rested so close to death’s door. With his leg set in a makeshift cast, the bones already reset, the hardest procedure by far was the only thing left to do until his son would wake again. At least that was the hope. 

A lot had happened in the past 20 or so hours, and the rat man thought back to the phone call earlier that day…

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

He had been sitting at his chair, watching his soaps, legs kicked back casually as he prepped some milk and cake to begin his mid-morning nap routine. Naps never hurt anyone. So, he stretched out and got comfortable, shifting his butt cheeks around to figuratively, literally, AND spiritually…veg out. 

He sunk down low, cracking the catch in his back, nearly…

Sinking lower…nearly…

His neck joints clicked as he stretched one…last…time...almost…

””RINGA DING DING!! RINGA DING DING!!! RINGA DING DAD!!! PICK UP, YOU HAVE A CALL!!!””

He had just about wedged his claws into the ceiling, growling as he coaxed his heart back down to a neutral, non-life-threatening rate. He rolled his eyes, as it had taken the purple one several days, several months prior, to convince him to keep a backup cell phone stored on his cabinet in case of an emergency. 

He immediately recognized the sing song chipper tone of his youngest rapscallion in the custom recorded ringtone. He nearly had the mind to see if he could wait it out… maybe it was stop ringing.

So, he waited…and waited…and he broke after 3 minutes of near constant ringing. Rubbing his eyes and grumbling, he got out of his near perfect lounge to pick up the dusty cellular device. The caller was Orange, as predicted. He called the most often out of the four, but most often his calls came in through texts he always forgot to check. His sons knew better than to interrupt his sleeping schedule, and Orange was no stranger to forgetting that rule on short notice.

…But…there was a small, tiny feeling inside his honor-bound Lou Jitsu heart that allowed the thought of ‘something’s wrong’ to cross his mind. 

…So… he answered, putting the phone on speaker. “You’re quite persistent Orange, it’s far past your and your brothers’ bedtimes. Are you all still out?”

There was no immediate answer, and Splinter was about to reprimand his youngest for making a prank call, but he heard a shaky breath, “…Pa…PapAaa…D-Daddy…” His tone was filled with fear and it was as if he could hear the overworking nasal clogging in the small turtle’s words. His typical dad demeanor dropped.

“Michelangelo…what’s wrong?” He wasted no time pulling out the full name. He heard the box turtle sputter, trying to regain his breathing despite the tears he was sure were running down his face.

“…mutant…explos-on…really high up…we fell…Don..Donnninnie…we stopped…fell…Donnie fell…D-DONNIE’S HURT…there’s bloo-ood…andand-and Leo! …He left!...And Raph left! I’m alo-ne…told me t’…call u n’ April…Humans…with guns…and a heli-copter…D-Donnie’s not…not m-mooovi-ngg…” The turtle was wrought with shaking sobs, and the immediate paternal panic he felt was forcefully tucked deep inside him so he could set an example.

“My son…listen to me. I need you to keep your emotions in check, you must stay alert and focused in even the most threatening and emotional of situations. Calm your breathing. You are not alone, little one. I am here with you. Do you understand, Michelangelo…?”

The speaker stuttered with the panting breath of his little artist, which slowed and cleared. “D-Dad…what do I do...?”

“Very good, son. Stay calm…do you know where your brothers are? Tell me what you see.”

“I…I’m in the alley…we’re in Times Square…There…There’s a SWAT team, a fleet of NYPD officers, an Animal Control van… They have the others surrounded. D-Donnie…he’s lying on a car. Leo and Raph…they’re protecting him…I-“

Both father and son fell silent when Donnie had screamed loud enough for the phone to pick it up. Splinter’s heart dropped, a scream like that from someone typically so quiet…his son was in great pain… “My son, what is happening?!”

“Raph tried to move him! And Leo, WAIT!!”

There was a loud commotion. “Michelangelo?!!”

After a few moments passed, he breathed when he heard Mikey again, “Leo made a portal! They can’t be far, I have to find them!!”

“Stay out of sight, my son, I will call April, bring your brothers home! Quickly now!”

“Oh-Oh…okay, Dad, I will…

Love you, Pa, I gotta go.”

And the call dropped.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Splinter sighed, reaching a hand out to rub Leo’s shoulder as he sat there. Blue and Purple, as middle children and twins, would butt heads often as to be expected. The two were so starkly different that conflict was inevitable, but they also served to balance each other. They were also, more often than not, the two smartest children of the bunch, a grounded base for Raph and Mikey to spring off of innocently. 

Without yin, yang could not flourish.

Leo wrapped his father into a hug, finally letting his stress roll off him like dewdrops. “Is…he going to be okay?” 

“I’m not sure, Blue.” The nickname was said fondly and endearing, “The most dangerous part is coming. As a father, I am nervous…scared, that your brother may not survive, but he has always been strong…and brilliant… despite his physical shortcomings. I have faith that he will pull through, and you must have faith too.” 

“Thanks Dad…” He pulled away and stood up with a long stretch after many hours of hunched over precision work. “I…better go get Raph, right?” 

Splinter nodded solemnly, and upon Leo leaving the med bay, the rat turned Donnie onto his back and removed the temporary patches that concealed the plastron break.  
\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

\--

\--

\--

…

\--

\--

… … 

\--

\--

… … …

…It was warm…

\--

\--

…It was safe…

…safe…and…warm…

…warm…and…safe…

\--  
\--  
\--

He lay curled up, resting peacefully as a breeze drifted by. Petals of sweet scented nectar pooled around him, pink in color, delicate in touch, though he couldn’t determine the shape. His fingers curled and tightened around the cloth ground, and he nuzzled into the soft, plush, and warm earth that steadily rose and fell like an ocean tide. Another breeze came and he shivered. A large form rested itself on the back of his shell, rolling rhythmically in slow circles. He trilled, taking a segment of the form and hugging it gently to his core, and the movements continued across his chest and belly. He yawned quietly, looking softly at the shape above him, at what he assumed was its face. His vision was foggy and formless, but color, he could discern. The form had eyes of gold…  
He closed his eyes, falling deeper into the sweet safe scent of sakura…

\--

\--

\--

\--

\--

\--

\--

\--

\--

...It was dark…

...It was cold...

…It was wet…

…It was small…

…It was closing in…

…It was hurting…

…

…

…

…It was lonely…

He wanted to move…He wanted to stretch…but he couldn’t. He was like a caterpillar in a cocoon that refused to break, and worse, it was getting tighter. 

He couldn’t move…

He couldn’t scream…

He couldn’t BREATHE!

Donnie awoke in a panic, and the first thing he saw was a bright blinding light. Long before that he had felt immeasurable pain. He attempted to move, but his body felt like heavy cement and he could only move one of his legs. When he shifted his chest, he cried out in pain, tears immediately leaking from the corners of his eyes. It hurts. IT HURTS!! 

He could feel a heavy pressure on his plastron where all the pain made his spine alight in searing pain, his pain receptors on firing on all cylinders. It was then that foreign bodies grappled onto him and held him down, pinning him to the hard surface he was lying on. He could hear voices, but he wasn’t fully lucid. 

He was hyperventilating, but each breath felt restricted and every single one felt like he was piling on burning coal after burning coal onto his frantically beating heart. 

Donnie’s energy depleted far sooner than he expected, now powerless against the forces that held him captive. A furry hand cupped his face, wiping away his tears, and he took in a strong savory scent of…hot soup…with a tiny hint of sakura…barely noticeable, but it was there. 

…

“…Dad-dy…?” His voice barely registered, it was hoarse and weak from all the screaming he had done. His senses finally cleared, and he saw his father, Raph and Leo, all bag eyed and frazzled. 

“My dear boy…” Splinter said with a smile, “You gave us all quite the scare.”

“I…where…?” 

“You’re home now, D.” Raph said, “Safe n’ sound…alive, thank god. I dunno what we’d do if you died on us, we knew you wouldn’t.” He let go of his arm, noticing blood on his own bulky forearms. The struggle had reopened some of the smaller wounds, and Leo jumped in re-patching them like a well-oiled machine. He’d had far too much practice. For the moment, he said nothing while Splinter continued.

“You’ve sustained major injuries to your shell, leg, and chest. Your plastron is broken in half, and we’re in the process of re-aligning the fragments so they can heal correctly… We hoped that you would stay unconscious, since we could not gather any hospital grade painkillers on such short notice. I’m sorry we caused you so much pain.”

Right…he remembered now. They’d all fallen, and only he hit the ground. More statistics swarmed through his head, and in the reflection of the metal above him, he could make out the extent of the damage to his plastron. He groaned softly and tilted his head back. Plastrons were responsible not just for protection, but they also kept all of the turtles’ internal organs in the correct places. Casting a glance over himself again, he saw the automobile clamp they had fastened to the outer rim of the fragments. It made sense why they waited till last to tackle the crack. Pushing the two pieces together without any training too quickly may result in some squished intestines. They couldn’t leave it misaligned however. 

With his good arm, he shakily pointed to a nearby drawer. “M-Morphine, 3rd shelf…on the right…and a towel…”

Their eyes widened, and immediately they retrieved a clean syringe, along with the other supplies. Donnie was a doctor, they had help now. 

“I’m not sure why you need the towel, baby bro.” Raph handed it to him, “We have plenty of cleaning wipes. 

“It’s not… for that...” He responded and gave Splinter a quiet nod. The father withdrew some of the morphine and tapped the tube for bubbles. 

“Hold him down. Try not to struggle, my son.”

The other two tentatively grabbed his arms again, now much more nervous about manhandling their broken sibling. 

Donnie balled up the towel a little and shoved it in his mouth with his good hand. Splinter gave him a supportive pat on the knee…

With his brothers’ grips firm, his teeth ground HARD into the soft towel with a muffled scream as his father injected the morphine within a sensitive muscle deep in the canyon of the break…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Halloween ^^


	4. Ba-Bump...Ba-Bump...

Leo felt his knees grow weak at his brother’s muscles tensing. He couldn’t bring himself to watch his father work, but the sheer mental picture of the ordeal was enough to make his stomach flip and grow queasy. He only exhaled when Donnie relaxed as the morphine began to run its course and reduce the area of pain to a numb nothingness. 

It wasn’t perfect, still a dull ache, but it was a far cry better than what he’d experienced before. The soft shell cracked his eyes back open, spitting out the towel from his dry mouth. He thought better than to speak further as Splinter worked, leaning his head back to try and relax as best as he could. The pain in his torso now dulled, his brain throbbed in his cranium, and he felt dizzy, from the blood loss probably…

Looking up at his brothers, he watched as Raph tried his best to give him a supportive and tired snaggle-smile, but Leo seemed unfocused and pale, not handling the situation fairly well… His scales seemed to look about equally as milky as his own skin. If he focused his eyes hard enough, he could spy his twin’s body swaying lightly, wobbly and less coordinated than expected. Raph seemed to follow his gaze to the younger middle child.

“Ey, Leo…” Raph prodded quietly, “Y’ haven’t eaten, have you?” 

Leo didn’t answer, so Raph jabbed him lightly in the shoulder, making Leo snap to attention. When he shifted, Donnie managed to spot a padded bandage wrapped firmly around his blue brother’s inner elbow. 

When prompted again, Leo just mumbled and waved away the concern, “-s’ fine…m’ fine…” 

“No, you’re not fine. Y’ got caught up in the panic like we all did, now go sit down and eat something before ya pass out.” Raph ordered in a soft but firm tone.

“…no waay…you ain’t the boss o’ me…” Leo grit his teeth in irritation, “I’m fine.” 

The eldest felt his exhaustion fuel his frustration, and both of the brothers’ increasing foul moods permeated the room as they stared each other down. Leo felt a quiet hiss rise in the base of his throat, daring Raph with red-glinted irises to pull him away from his twin. 

“…Leo…” 

The would-be quarrelers directed their attention back to Donnie, who rested his hand on Leo’s. “They don’t…n-need us both…out cold…” He felt Splinter pause his work so he took focus on taking a deep controlled breath. “Go on now…” Predictably, his red eared brother hesitated, pain clearly evident in his eyes. “Please…for me...?” 

Donnie could hardly keep his eyes open any longer in his dizziness, but he made sure to give Leo’s hand a comforting squeeze, to which he received one in turn. He felt the three- fingered hand slip away, and quietly the med bay doors swished open and closed again. 

Raph breathed a heavy sigh, taking a moment to sit down. His large hands were shaking a bit, the fingertips worked to the point of being raw from hours of precision work he had never been used to. He couldn’t let himself rest for long though…not yet. Soon, hopefully, but his family still needed him. Before he stood again, he watched Donnie rest his eyes, the stiff but steady rise and fall of his chest bringing him reassurance. His brow furrowed on occasion as a ripple of discomfort passed over him, Splinter was cleaning the dried blood from the edges of the break.

The snapper stood once again, acknowledging his father’s signal as he fastened his hands on the clamp. He turned the crank…slowly…carefully…

The purple one tightened his fist and grit is teeth, and after a painfully…agonizingly slow 20 minutes, the two plastron plates finally came into contact with one another and were fully pressed back together until it was flush like before, no squished intestines to be felt. It would take a little time for his organs to rearrange to their original orientation and he would need to be careful so nothing would tangle or flip…but finally…finally...he could begin healing. 

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Raph and Splinter weren’t finished however, and they set about making Donnie as comfortable as possible, since he likely couldn’t leave the med-bay for a while. They left the clamp on for the time being, not having any safe medical adhesive they could use to seal the crack without it falling apart again. They would have to wait until morning to attempt to retrieve anything like that from the surface or the underground. They set about getting cool packs set against bruises and cream for minor cuts. His bad leg was also propped up for leverage. Lastly, Splinter coaxed Donnie into eating at least a little bit, the dribbles of hot soup warming his gullet and making his eyes grow heavier. 

The matter settled for now, the aging rat mutant gently shooed his eldest to his room, “Off to bed, my son. You’re all safe, I promise.”

Raph was quiet, his eyes flicking back to the med-bay door periodically. Splinter sighed, stepping closer.

“You did good.”

“Huh?” his son uttered, “B-but he-“

“…is safe…alive. They all are, because of you, my son.” He gestured Raph to kneel down to his level, and he did so he could step closer. “You panic when you’re under heavy stress, but when your brother’s life depended on it, you held it together and brought him home. You brought them all home.” 

He rested a hand on the red leader’s head, stroking the scales tenderly, “I am sorry…that you all have to deal with things like this so young. You shouldn’t have to, but I am so proud of you. You did the right thing, and now we’ve done all we can for Donnie, until tomorrow. To help him tomorrow, we all must rest.” 

Raph’s eyes grew watery, and Splinter happily welcomed the giant and gentle hug from his son. “Th-thanks, Pop…Dad…” He took a shaky breath, his own legs growing weak with exhaustion. “I…I was real scared, Pa…”

“So was I, my son…so was I.”

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

\--

\--

\--

Everyone slept like the dead, or nearly did. If anyone got a peaceful night’s sleep, it was because of drop dead exhaustion rather than chilled out nerves. 

April woke first, finding Mikey curled up deep in his shell. As much as she wanted to stay, she had school, and her mom would give her an earful if she skipped again. It was a miracle that she even woke up on time to begin with. She did however, have Mayhem stay behind with Mikey so that he would have something soft to cuddle with if he wanted. Regretfully, she left the lair, hoping they would all be okay.

Hours later, it was noon when Donnie woke next to a dry feeling in his throat and a remaining dull throbbing in his skull…or really his entire body. Swallowing felt like a difficult core, his eyes still heavy with crust lining the corners. Swelling of ears or eyes on a turtle was a telltale sign of illness, likely an infection. Where? He wasn’t sure, but it wasn’t that far along yet. What he was sure of although, it was practically inescapable, was shell rot. He would need to be put on heavy antibiotics. 

Looking around though, what unsettled him a bit more was the fact that he was alone in the med bay. It unsettled him that the fact that he was alone unsettled him. He was typically a pretty introverted turtle. He loved his brothers of course, but solitude was his safe space for him to mentally recharge from a stressful day. Though he supposed that only counted when he was working on something he was passionate about, like his bust or his tech. Here he was stationary. He couldn’t move or do anything. He couldn’t go out to find someone…

\--

Why was he feeling this way…? 

Uneasy…nervous…cold…

\--

He couldn’t stop himself from speaking out into the silence, “h-hello?”

His voice was a quiet whisper, all of the volume taken by his weakened lungs, and yet he continued, “…Dad? …Raph? ...is…anyone there? Please…Mikey?”

Donnie ran short of breath, the one-sided exchange bleeding his energy dry. “…L-Leo?”

His heart just about jumped out of his chest when his twin scrambled just outside the med-bay door, bursting his way in. How was that possible? His room was on the opposite end of the lair. 

…had he slept just outside the med-bay door all night?

\--

Leo was a mess, Mask-less and still a smidge bit paler than he should be, his pelvis cramped from sleeping sitting on the hard-concrete floor right outside the med-bay, shell against the wall with his knees tucked tightly against his plastron. It probably would’ve been smarter if he had just slept in his shell, but he was past thinking logistically at this point. 

“Donnie! What’s wrong? A-Are you okay? Are you in pain!?” He asked frantically, his shaking hands awkwardly hovering over his brother, not sure if he should touch him or if that would end up hurting him more. 

“Nardo…ears ringing…inside voice.” Donnie gritted out as his head pounded.

“Oh god oh god I’m so sorry! I-I-I-“ 

Donnie managed to pin his twin’s lips together with his fingers on his good arm. “It’s okay, bro…I’m not dead or dying….at least not anymore, thanks to you.” He rested is arm back down, feeling sore.

“Me?” 

“Your blood, it was yours…right?”

“Oh…” Leo looked down at his elbow, the patch still fastened. “Y-Yeah…still feel a little woozy…it was…a lot, but you needed it, so…”

“Did you eat something?”

“Y-Yeah…a little…”

“Leo…”

“Do you think my guts would have an appetite while you were practically spilling your own guts out last night?” He growled, irritable, yet another symptom of blood loss on top of uncoordinated movement.

“Leo…don’t be dumb, you have to get iron in your system to make more…”

“ME being dumb? You fell off a building and didn’t try to save yourself with the rest of us, you dumbass!” 

“L-Leo-“

“Shut up!” The blue slider couldn’t hold back anymore and lurched forward, his arms wrapping around is brothers neck, face pressed against his bruised cheek. “You stupid idiot… I don’t wanna hear it! You scared the shit outta me… god knows what they would’ve done to you! There was so much blood and they were going to take you away from us and NEVER do that again! Do you hear me, Donnie? Don’t you EVER do that again…promise me you won’t…”

Donnie said nothing, whether it be from delirium or from shock as he felt wet salty tears flood down between their faces, light sobs quaking his twin’s body. He painfully sniffled, pressing closer to his twin and feeling his own tears catch on the rim of his jaw. They just stayed like that for a while. “Leo…” he began again. “You’re right…”

Leo had since calmed enough to stop crying, but he looked at his brother in confusion, “What do you mean?”

“I am a stupid idiot.” He whispered.

“What…no bro, listen, I was just-“

“No, you listen!” Donnie retorted, is ragged voice the loudest it had been since Leo had burst in. “It was all me! It was all my fault! I was the one who said we should investigate the electrical disturbance. It was my invention that I never tested that overloaded, self-imploded, and then exploded. It was my fault that we all fell off that building, and I didn’t think once about saving myself…” he took a painful ragged breath, exhaustion coming on again, “Part of the thinking was logistics, but ultimately all I cared about was saving you three. At that point, your survival was the only thing that mattered to me. I could have stopped …but Raph would have hit the ground instead, I just…” His head fell back against the table, almost ready to pass out from overexertion. “I’m the stupid idiot who screwed everything up…and now look at me…I don’t know if I can ever make myself useful again.”

“Hey…” Leo snipped, visibly tired of listening to Donnie berate himself, “Quit the quitter talk and shut up, you gotta save your energy, not just because it’s not worth wasting on that kind of yammering, but you have to focus on getting better. Cuz yeah, maybe it WAS mostly your fault, but you’re gonna heal up, you’re gonna get better, and you’re gonna proudly walk out on that rooftop again with the rest of us and make up for it. You’re only gonna fail if you stop trying.” 

Donnie stared at him after a little while and then pulled out a light smile as he snickered, “If I’m gonna get better, you have to take care of yourself too…okay? You’re going to have to look good when we go out again.” 

“I am the handsome one, aren’t I?”

“Mmmm…” Donnie’s snoot scrunched up in annoyance.

“-But that’s why you’re the smart one. Yeah…I feel like shit, probably look like it too, huh?” Leo leaned against the bed. 

“Mmhmm…”

Leo chuckled, resting a hand on Donnie’s head, rubbing it softly. “Promise me you’ll get better though. We can’t be the dynamic disaster duo with only the handsome uno.”

Donnie smiled and nodded, “Twinsies honor.”

“Well I better actually go eat something…my stomach feels like it’s going to eat itself.” He smiled, leaning down to nuzzle against Donnie with a low purr, to which the twin responded in kind. They hadn’t done this since they were tots, and if literally anyone caught them doing it, they would never let them live it down. “I love you, brother.”

“Love you too, Leo.” Donnie smiled, one eye cracked open. He watched him stand up and make to leave the med-bay when he suddenly remembered, “Hey, Leo wait!”

“W-What is it?” Leo turned sharply. 

Donnie began chuckling, his sentence broken up by laughter, “I…I called you in here… hah! Because I needed a drink…oh god my chest hurts owww!” His hand gripped over his plastron as he fought to stifle the giggles at how ridiculously dramatic the two had just gotten. 

“W-WHAT! Why did you say so in the first place, dingus?! Calm down before you rip your shell open again and I’ll be right back in a flash.” Leo sprinted out of the med-bay.

Donnie finally managed to slow his breathing and leaned back, looking up at the florescent lights above him, listening to the sound of his own beating heart. 

He sighed, knowing he’d need to be patient. 

Getting back up again would be easier said than done.


	5. Rattle...Purr...

If Agent 64 knew anything, it was three things. One, April was the only one who could prepare his dinner anywhere close to his liking. Two, he was the most superior being on the surface world and all those who inhabited it, with perhaps the exception of April, were below even his litterbox. Point number two was not a statement of opinion, it was simply a fact, deal with it, but that’s beside the point. Three, he knew when people weren’t acting right. The sewer dwelling shell mutants April called her friends weren’t acting right. 

He crept out of the box turtle’s room, sliding nonchalantly along the walls of the mutants’ lair. The yokai sniffed the air. His senses were much stronger than all of the other beings present and the scent of half-rotten pizza and soup cans had long since faded into smelling “normal” for him. Mayhem had a knack for picking out the emotions of others through chemical changes in their scents, and it was one of the reasons why the elders had assigned him on Baron Draxum’s case. A sour and bitter tinge had dusted the entire sewer and its inhabitants. Even his own servant reeked of anxiety. 

Mayhem didn’t typically care about the turtles or the rat when the situation was casual, only really associating with them when April was involved, and only on rare occasions begrudgingly accepting a scratch behind the ears. He didn’t mind them much, except for maybe the big red one. The big red one was simply too big, too soft, too much like a giant scratching post. Mayhem never hopped off Red without leaving a sea of claw marks fitting for a prison cell wall. 

He continued along, musing contently to himself. He let out a soft mew and it echoed off the walls, how odd… After about 20 minutes of wandering, he finally found another living soul. It was the rat, along with the blue and red ones. They seemed to be talking quietly amongst themselves and skimming down a list of some sort. The yokai sat with his tail curled around his legs as he quietly watched them from the shadows. The three seemed to come to a resolution and they all hugged one another.

“Be careful, my sons. One of you hurting is one too many. Come home safe, stay out of sight, and stay out of trouble.”

“We will Dad, promise.” The blue one spoke softly, the cider-like spicy kick of his boisterous optimism in his scent no longer present. 

Mayhem watched to two ascend up the manhole to the surface. “We’ll be back soon.”

\--

\--

\--

The rat had sunk back into the lair after the two turtles left, and Mayhem followed along quietly, fluffy tail twitching with curious intrigue. He hopped onto Red’s bench, the large weights set off to the side, and he dug his claws into the leather, kneading the material deeply at one of the corners. He was so preoccupied with sharpening his nails that he didn’t notice the flower-scented elder disappear and then eventually reappear with his youngest kit trailing slowly behind him. The orange one typically smelled as sweet as pure untreated sugarcane or vanilla beans, but now there was an acrid bitter taste so strongly wafting off his form that Mayhem himself could feel his mood shift ever so slightly. It was sour like a punch in the face, much like…well…an orange. Continuing to knead, he watched the two disappear into the food place. On any normal day, he would typically follow for any chance at a morsel of sustenance for the bottomless pit he called his stomach, but today wasn’t a normal day. The look in the orange youngling’s eyes said as much. In fact, right before he had disappeared along with his father, Mayhem caught him glancing away, and following his gaze left the yokai staring at a pair of teal tinted doors. There would lie the answer to this emotional shift, he was sure.

He blinked out and then back in, his form now placed right outside those very teal doors. The automatic sensors eyed him, and almost immediately the doors swished opened swiftly. Ears twitching, he meandered around outside the door before moseying his way in. 

The scent of the air in this room didn’t appeal to him very much. It felt empty, which was common in sterile environments. The air didn’t flow like a normal room and there was a concerning lack of scents, or those that were present were often masked in something that dulled them or overpowered them, like alcohol. It was a sort of scent camouflage that unsettled him. Better to have scents that let you know that the world around you was alive rather than the deadness of none at all. It was one of the smaller reasons why he didn’t care for the humiliating torture that April called baths. He didn’t want his musk covered up, it was a part of him. It would be something dull sensed surface dwellers would never understand. 

After a few more moments poking around, he wasn’t surprised to find the scent record of the events of the past few days trickled here and there. The organization and layering of each emotion, feeling, and scent was chaotic and complex. There was a sad odor lingering over it all though, blood. It had been scrubbed from every surface and all matter of bleaching agents had been dumped on top but they couldn’t fool his nose. 

He followed the trail, having to focus on it because it had been diluted so heavily. The cat dog creature scooted underneath a two-layered curtain made of a plastic sort of material with a simple cheap cloth draped over it. Mayhem then found himself at the foot of a tall metal table. Having such small legs never stopped him from getting where he wanted to go. So, he blinked-

-and was nearly startled half to death to find the last missing turtle sleeping on the table as he landed on it. Oh...he looked over him, things made a lot more sense now. It was unnerving that he’d been wandering around this room for a decent ten minutes without having the slightest clue that another living being had been present. He crept closer, his nose nearly touching the pale green skin. He could now understand why the purple one had been so perfectly hidden from his olfactory. 

Purple’s scent was peculiar. Being surrounded by metal, wire, and refined elements had morphed his signature into one inherently more metallic than your average organic. It was often peppered in the smoky undertones of the sparks that flew off while welding. He was notoriously a neat freak, a borderline germaphobe, who kept backups of backups of supplies of hand sanitizer. They did live in the cesspool of the surface dwellers’ waste products after all. Whenever Purple entered a room, it was the smell of his saline soaked shell that made him stand out. It was almost like an anti-smell, but what else would you expect from a turtle that drank flavorless juice for breakfast? Peculiar...very peculiar indeed, though Mayhem always found him respectable enough. He kept to himself and that was fine for Mayhem, but he had always been working. To see him so still was a solemn sight. The blood that had poured out of his body, only a day or so prior if he had to guess, was copper in likeness, not too far from his sterile iron wrought smell, and thus, he had vanished from his nasal radar. 

Mayhem tiptoed closer to the turtle, tail puffed out like a feather duster and with steps as silent as a mouse. He watched the turtle’s breath, as it slowly eased in and out in a passive methodical rhythm. That didn’t stop the rattle of a respiratory warble to rear its head every few minutes, causing Purple to cough lightly in his slumber. On a side table nearby laid several bottles with child-safe caps, rolls of gauze, a quarter roll of club crackers and a glass of water, barely touched. The poor teen was wrapped up nearly like a leper, bags under his eyes a deeper shade of turquoise, with yellowish crust forming on his eyelids. There was no doubt that Purple…Donatello was falling gravely ill, if the rotten twinge of infection on his breath was anything to go by. 

\--

\--

\--

Donnie laid there quietly, feeling his instincts push and pull his diaphragm despite the mucus that started accumulating in the back of his throat. He was on his fourth round of antibiotics, having not been awake for the first two. The pills made him groggy and sapped his energy, energy he wished he could do something useful with. His heart and mind wanted to contribute, to help provide. However, his body metaphorically punched his heart and mind in the face like a 5th grade bully dragging a victim behind the school dumpster on the blacktop playground for their lunch money. At least that’s what it felt like. It told them to suck it up and stop being little bitches because there was no way in hell that the physical systems that kept Donnie functioning in his body could work together anywhere near well enough to let him stand on his own, much less accomplish any task. He was staying put, right there in the med-bay, and there was nothing he could do about it but rest. Fate was a cruel son of a bitch though, and the phlegm in his lungs would send him into a coughing fit when he was mere seconds from reaching REM. 

He had to lay here and suffer…alone. 

…there was something fuzzy brushing against his fingers, he wasn’t alone.  
The genius cracked his eyes open, already feeling the headache coming on as light seeped into his vision. He felt a near immediate urge to rub at his itching eyes to get rid of all the crud. He glanced down the length of his body, finding a big pair of red-rimmed burgundy irises staring back at him. He opened his mouth, only for a hack to come out which startled the yokai into arching his back. Thankfully he calmed a few seconds later, making a concerned whimpering sound.

“Mayhem…hey buddy…April’s got school so…I guess she left you here, huh?”

The cat thing tilted his head, allowing Donnie’s hand to cradle his head. He purred and waved his tail around as the turtle stroked him under the chin and along his neck. Okay…for the moment, this one was on April’s level and far above his three brothers, but only for the moment.

“I’m sure you can tell I’m not doing…very well. I did something dumb… and this is me facing the consequences.” He then coughed again, licking his drying cracked lips. 

Mayhem’s eyes grew sad and sympathetic. He gingerly stepped over his plastron and curled up against Donnie’s neck and shoulder, mewling and resting his head on his collarbone. 

Donnie felt the vibrations rumbling from the yokai’s throat, and he smiled. “Aww…that’s sweet of you Mayhem…y’know cat purring is said to promote healing processes in the body… Is that what you’re doing…?” It wasn’t necessarily uncomfortable, just a strange sensation. It wasn’t like a turtle purr. 

To be frank, turtle purring wasn’t even real purring. Their normal non-mutated counterparts couldn’t purr. Most of the time they barely vocalized at all, and only vocalized at a pitch too low, too brief, and too quiet for humans to hear. Only a rare few semi-aquatic species made noises when they hatched, and the other kind of sound turtles made…well…wasn’t age appropriate to discuss until Mikey was older. The four of them were quite lucky to have developed human vocal chords, more dexterous facial muscles and teeth. What Mayhem was doing was actual purring.

The turtle purr had started when the four of them were barely mentally old enough to have memories that stuck. Splinter…the ever-responsible father he was back then, decided to sit his five year olds down in front of a classic gory dinosaur film. Most of them didn’t sleep that night, but when they all curled up together in their makeshift box bassinet, shaking from the thought of dinosaurs coming to eat them, Mikey started to mimic the sound the raptors made in the film. It wasn’t a threatening sound, it had been used exclusively to communicate with each other. The sound continued for a few minutes before Raph started doing it too. Of course, monkey see, monkey do, eventually they all did, and they just…never stopped, never truly. It mellowed out with age, but it was special to them and got pulled out for special occasions. The closest apparent comparison was a tiger’s chuff rather than a cat’s purr. 

Curiously though, he had been browsing the internet a few years back and found out that the sound effects used to create the raptors’ vocals in the film were in fact predominantly recorded and altered turtle sounds. Curious…perhaps there was a turtle purr after all.

The four of them just invented it. 

\--

\--

\--

It was almost dusk when Leo and Raph returned to the Lair. With them they carried a slew of bags filled with various things. They felt…off about it…

They hadn’t had to steal anything in a long time, certainly nothing like this. 

The Mad Dogz didn’t do this…heroes didn’t do this…but Splinter was sure to tell them that the world is anything but black and white. Most good folks tried to stay on the lighter tints of grey. 

After all, this would be vital for Donnie’s recovery…they would be his heroes. There was no use dwelling on the moral semantics when their brother lay sick and edging on death’s front lawn. The ends would justify the means. No one was hurt. They got the stuff they needed. Donnie would be okay. He would get better. That’s all that mattered. 

Even if they weren’t sure if they missed a security camera on the way out or not. They couldn’t really be bothered to care. 

Anyways it was time for dinner, and Mikey had worked so hard all day to make it good. 

\--

\--

\--

Cooking had helped the youngest turtle settle down throughout most of the day. He felt a little like his old self again, having an outlet to focus on so he could sprinkle the old razzmatazz again.

He delicately stirred the pot, taking half a second to dip his third finger into the concoction and bringing the medley to his tongue. He hand-cracked a few twists of pepper and added another healthy dash of salt before tasting again, nodding in approval. He took the pot off the burner, stirring a few more times to keep everything even. He then pulled out a few bowls, ladling in everyone’s portions, even setting aside a little pint-sized bowl for Mayhem. The scent attracted his brothers and father like flies to a lamp. He gave them all his best honest smile he could give at the moment, setting the table.  
“Wow, Mikey that smells divine…you didn’t sneak in any greens, did you?” Leo stuck out his tongue teasingly.

“Only the good kind, no Brussel sprouts in this one, cross my heart.” The orange clad brother chuckled as they all sat down.

“So what kinda magic did you whip up this time?” Raph asked.

Mikey heaved the large pot off the counter, setting it carefully on the oven cloth at the center of the four of them. “Seafood gumbo, careful, it’s hot and it’s got a little kick to it.” 

“Ooooh shrimp!” Raph’s mouth looked like it was about to water as Leo’s eyes grew wide with eager hunger. 

“Another type of hot soup! Well done, Orange!” Splinter’s tail curled as he pulled his bowl toward him. 

Mikey blushed with a smile while pouring out another bowl. “Hope you guys enjoy, I’ll be right back.”

Staring at the extra bowl, they seemed to understand, and they excused him. 

\--

\--

\--

The littlest turtle stepped through the med-bay doors, swallowing lightly. He hadn’t seen his genius brother since he’d fallen asleep while taking care of him. He felt really guilty about it…but he just didn’t feel ready yet. He figured that none of them would be sleeping soundly for a little while. He had to put on a brave face though, for Donnie. 

The state he’d found his brother in most definitely alleviated is nerves. It was such a Kodak moment, if only it could’ve happened before. Donnie and Mayhem were snoozing, the yokai curled up in a little ball on top of him. Donnie had a rare smile on his face. He didn’t want to disturb them, but given the untouched water and snacks, he just knew that Donnie needed some calories badly. 

Mayhem’s ears perked and he jutted his head up as Mikey stepped closer. “Mrrrr?” His little heart-shaped nose twitched at the scents wafting in from the kitchen.

“There’s a you-sized bowl out there with your name on it, buddy.” Mikey said quietly, as to not disturb them too much. Though at the mention of food, Mayhem teleported almost instantly, blinking out and based on the sounds of Raph making a ruckus, had reappeared where the good smells were. Perhaps he’d taken the “you-sized” comment a little too literally. When Mikey turned back around, he jolted a bit seeing Donnie staring at him with barely woken eyes.

Donnie smiled slowly, “Hey Angelo…”

“What’s shakin’ bacon?” he replied, trying to keep his carefree attitude on the surface to hide as much of his nervousness as possible. 

“I’ve…been better…but based on the smell of that soup you’ve got there, I bet I’m bound to feel better. What is it?”

“It’s just a little gumbo I threw together…” 

“Shrimp…a softshell staple, the spices make for a good decongestant, hydration, contents soft and easy enough to digest…you did a bit of reading up, didn’t you? That sounds like exactly what I need…” He shifted a bit, a sharp sting running down his spine before he settled and forced a smile on his face at Mikey’s thoughtfulness. 

The artist stepped forward and sat a quarter of himself on the table at Donnie’s side. He helped prop him up so he could eat properly. He had made the gumbo just for him after all.

“How’re you doing…?” he asked him.

“Shouldn’t that be my question, D?”

“You’d be totally fair to ask…but you already did.” He gently took a spoonful of the gumbo with his good hand, blowing on it to get rid of the excess steam. 

“Oh…right.” 

“I just wanna make sure you’re okay too, Mikey…Seeing me like that…I’d be terrified if it had been you…” He sipped the broth, managing to catch one of the mini shrimp in his mouth. His stomach settled when warmth filled it, his body feverishly taking every single bit of nutrition out of the spoonful and absorbing it into his body. The shrimp made the remnant of his lizard brain sing as its taste flooded his mouth, complimented by all of the spices he could feel were already clearing his sinuses out. “By the supreme in the sky, Mikey…this is amazing…I love it!”

“You do?! Really?!” He felt his cheeks warm, and a bit of relief seeping into his bones as he careful danced around Donnie’s question. 

“Yeah…maybe letting you watch Meatsweats wasn’t such a bad idea after all.” He gingerly continued eating, feeling his arm already grow sore from so much movement. 

“Every artist takes their favorite tidbits from others and then morph it into their own wacky style! Soon enough it’ll be my name on that Flavortown sign instead of Ruuu...pert…” The former name of the villain rolled awkwardly off his tongue. The two brothers looked at each other and began to laugh at that. 

Donnie made sure to settle down before he stressed his plastron injury, the clamp still fastened. He missed being able to turn on his side or his stomach. Hopefully it would be taken off soon.

“I really wish I could eat the rest of this, Michael…I just don’t think I can take a whole lot more than this right now… You could refrigerate it though and I could eat the rest later…” He said, regretfully handing the bowl back over to his brother. 

“Hey, it’s okay!” he smiled back, a full honest to goodness genuine smile this time. “Don’t wanna overload you, and that’s a great idea!” He’d had about a quarter of the bowl, which, from what Dad had told him, was a massive improvement from just a few sips the other night. “Just focus on resting and getting better!”

“Don’t have much of a choice on that front…I’m afraid.” It was a sad statement, but Donnie had said it cheerfully. “I promise I’ll do my best, little brother.”

“I’ll hold ya to it.” Mikey smiled, helping him lay back down again, giving him a gentle hug before making his exit. Donnie watched him go, his smile fading slightly as he closed his eyes again.

…alone…

\--

\--

\--

\--

\--

Dinner was over now, the dishes all loaded up in the sink. Mikey glanced to the rest of his family as they all unloaded the bags. There were some odd things in those bags he’d never seen before in his life. He read the label on one of the medium sized tubs. Most of the words were Donnie sized, but the last one seemed simple enough, so he let the syllables roll systematically out of his mouth.

“Eh…pahcks…see…E-pox-y…Epoxy?”

He caught Leo nodding out of the corner of his eye. “The stuff in these containers is gonna help Donnie, but we’re gonna need your skills for this job, Mikey.” 

“Me…my skills? Like, what? I don’t know if I can do the whole medicine shtick, that’s…well that’s Donnie’s thing.”

“It’s not medicine, trust me…you’ll do just fine. You’ve got this. In fact, once everything’s ready, I think you’re gonna love it.” Leo gave him one of his calling card smirks, but there was an endearing warmth behind his eyes. 

“No one else can do it but you.”


	6. Tick Tick Tick, Tap Tap Tap

April’s mechanical pencil rapped incessantly against the lab table as she made anxious side-eyes at the clock for the 15th time in the past two minutes. The seconds ticked by slowly…slowly… It was only second period and she already felt like she was going to burst. Swiping her thumb across her phone screen, she refreshed her text messages again and again out of her teacher’s view. She was adamant in being patient and waiting for someone at the lair to give her an excuse to go to “the nurse’s office” for the rest of the day, but that didn’t make the agony of waiting any easier. Sunita wasn’t even there to help support her either. One of her dad’s surprise explosions had gone haywire and her friend was stuck scraping googlyshmootz off of the pizzeria ceiling with a spatula.

The yokai was the only one who could ever come close to understanding how she felt right now…

A loud slam caused her to jolt, not so much in fear of the noise but in fear that her 5 years of learning ninja combat vicariously may kick in. It did not…thankfully. She looked up to see her bio teacher having dropped an overpriced textbook in front of her. The woman’s arms were crossed, the fingers on one hand tapping against her other elbow. “Welcome back to the land of the living Ms. O’Neil, are you ready to pay attention to the lab work today?” 

“O-Oh…yes ma’am, sorry ma’am…” She stuttered in response, having been so absorbed in Donnie’s injured state that she hadn’t been keeping up on her schoolwork lately, much less the half-hearted lecture from the underpaid teacher she and Sunita affectionately referred to as Ms. Frazzle. She was a well-meaning woman, passionate enough about the subject…she supposed. However, a good decade’s worth of rowdy 16-year-olds coming in and going out would suck the life out of anyone, and it was certainly too late for poor Ms. Frazzle. Said teacher wheeled a concealed bag out of the classroom’s closet, to the excitement of…absolutely no one. 

“We’ve got a doozey today, class…” Her voice did not waver from her hungover tone a single time. “This will be our final dissection before the midterm, and yes, what you learn today will be on the midterm. So please do be kind and inform your classmates who are absent to come in on Saturday for a makeup of the lab.” She pulled out a handful of blue zipped up pencil case-sized bags, ones the entire class was familiar with, because that’s where all of the surgical tools were kept for each student. The plastic trays with blue foam mats were also passed out, the students organizing all of the pins and labels and disinfecting all of the tables. It was then that Ms. Frazzle finally opened the specimen bag and the acrid and eye-itching scent of formaldehyde emanated through the room. 

“The university was very generous by donating these specimens to us, so this is a special treat.” Ms. Frazzle gloved one of her hands and reached into the bag, and what she pulled out made April’s stomach twist into knots.

To be frank, dissections were pretty gnarly and cool in some respects, roadkill didn’t typically phase her, not like poor Mikey or even Raph sometimes. Getting hands on in bled out guts beat out looking at boring diagrams, but right here, right now she felt sick. She would’ve taken a fetal pig or a mouse or something over this. 

Anything but this.

By fate’s cruel twist of irony, why did it have to be a turtle…?

She watched the poor little things get passed around the room, and eventually one testudine was laid onto her foam mat. They were all small red-eared sliders which made sense since they were so easy to acquire in most cases. They ranged from three to five inches in shell length from head to tail, which would’ve made them all roughly a year or two old had they been alive. Well, it didn’t really matter since they were already dead. April knew ultimately that these little guys weren’t accumulated through cruel means, but she couldn’t help but think of Leo. How could she not? Leo used to be a normal turtle, probably around this size from the stories Splinter had told her. To think that he was the one red ear that lucked out into becoming a mutant instead of this was wild to ponder in her mind. She didn’t think she could ever talk about what would happen today with any of the turtles, but she had to look on the bright side. There was knowledge to be gained here, and if Donnie needed any kind of intrusive surgery, she would be the best bet to pull it off after today. It was sick, but she had to do it for her bros. 

Thankfully the dissection went along smoothly when April put herself in the proper mind state. It did bother her just how easy it was to remove the plastron off of the specimen. Two incisions on the bridges that connected the shell and the plastron and it just popped right off. Also, it was just as she had heard before from the brothers, the plastron held the guts in and the guts went everywhere, having to be picked out carefully and set to the side. Humans had an average length of 25 feet of intestines, and with that fact she couldn’t stop the image of Donnie broken open like a fortune cookie from crossing her mind. It turned out to be the hardest part over with, and to her relief, most of everything else in the turtle was arranged not too far off of every other dissection she had ever done before in this class. It brought her a bit of relief that she could help if it was necessary. The one difference was that her turtle ended up being a female, with a whole slew of unfertilized shell-less yolks tucked in the back behind all the other organs. Okay…she found it a little interesting that the shells came on later after fertilization. It was kinda cool. Irrelevant in every sense of the word, but cool. 

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As they were cleaning up and April found peace in the fact that the turtle she had picked around in would finally be put to rest, Ms. Frazzle got called out unexpectedly. April immediately took the opportunity to check her phone messages, and still nothing… She had five periods to go before she could zip right over to the lair…

She almost dropped her kitty phone while hiding it from view when Ms. Frazzle re-entered, “Attention class, it seems we have a new transfer student joining us last minute… Regardless of what rumors you may have heard, I expect you all to treat your new classmate with respect. Help her catch up so that she’ll be ready for midterms along with the rest of you. Ms., you can sit next to O’Neil until we get you a proper seating assignment.” She stepped aside, allowing the girl to pass by her with an annoyed scoff. She changed her tune the second her eyes locked with April’s.

April herself gripped her phone tighter and scowled while the fuchsia haired chick strode over to her table, blinking ankle cuff strapped to her jegging. “April…” She smirked with a wink.

“…Kendra.”

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A still body lay deep in the recesses of the dark fuchsia tinted space. The lights that lined the screens and walls were dimmed from underuse, their power cells starting to run dry. A triple monitor setup batted a small circular graphic across the wide-fielded screens in a never-ending game of table tennis with four walls. The screensaver shielded the room from the mountains of emails and error messages in a thousand inboxes cluttered with junk. The soft thrum of the tiring generators churned through the silence, only interrupted briefly now and then by a pathetic and raspy gasp of air, for the body curled up on the berth was still alive. Alive but not thriving. Alive but suffering.

Donnie’s condition had worsened considerably, dangerously, in a short period of time. He was gravely sick, a vicious and bloodthirsty brawl within him wracked his body as wave after wave of pain and shell-rotting infection coursed through his system that was struggling to fight on with the never ending internal trauma. He was rendered blind and nearly deaf by the heavily inflamed swelling in his eyes and ears. Discharge and crust caked his eyelids, rubbed tender and raw when the poor boy found it too painful to mess with anymore, giving up one of his senses with a distraught whimper. His form couldn’t decide whether or not it wanted to be searing with fever and hot flashes or freezing with chills so it flip-flopped at random intervals like how a young Mikey might stumble on a thermostat. The techie’s face was slick with cold sweat which soaked into the sheets. His father, a few days earlier, decided that given his worsening condition, he may find comfort in his personal quarters rather than the med-bay. It would be closer, where everyone could help keep a better eye on him. Mikey and Leo had feverishly constructed a nest of pillows and blankets which Raph had gently set him down in the center of. The automobile clamp had been removed, but his condition made it too dangerous to continue on to the next recovery phase, so the structure of his broken plastron was held together by compression bandages and the bare minimum amount of marrow and tissue regeneration. It wasn’t possible for Donnie to curl up, but he bent as much as he could instinctively into the corner of his berth, instinctively feeling more secure in the tight space, but his family could still reach him. Splinter often did, gingerly dabbing his face and heated forehead with a wrapped ice pack for the fever temperature control. 

That was near the beginning of the downturn though, as of now, Donnie had not roused from unconsciousness for over 30 hours and counting. Splinter regretfully had to trick his reflexes into unconsciously swallowing his scheduled antibiotic and pain medications. Changing his bandages and dressings thankfully wasn’t too difficult in his distant state. Most of the wounds had closed, but large gnarled ugly bruises took their place. His son gasped open mouthed, the fever growing worse in the past few hours. He gently washed his face, cleaning away more sweat and discharge. It was late...very late that night. The rat’s ears flickered back and forth as his remaining children sulked in, bodies seemingly low to the ground. He turned to them, ready to give a soft reprimand for them being up so late, but he paused. It was like looking into their eyes as young toddlers. Having dragged their own bedding into the lab, their request was obvious in their large sad eyes, especially Mikey’s. He was in no state to fight back against the puppy dog eyes when they shone so genuine. So, with a sigh, he rubbed their heads and watched as they all curled up on the floor around each other. Finished with Donnie’s treatment for now, Splinter sat at the foot of the berth, trying his best to make himself comfortable to try and rest. It only lasted for a few minutes before a soft whine cracked one eye open. He snaked his tail over to Donnie, wrapping it firmly around one of his palms. The boy was fidgeting, whimpering and whining growing more frequent. He caught sight of his brow furrowing, teeth gritting, until finally his body tensed up hard. 

A large gasp, followed by a barely audible sniffled, “...ooowww...” was what clued the Sensei into figuring that his son was awake. It must not have been a pleasant dream, considering the soft tears leaking from those swollen eyes, though granted they could also be tears of hurt, the pain from him tensing likely what broke him from the nightmare in the first place. He pulled out another cold pack, gingerly easing it over his son’s face to stop the salty tears from further aggravating the sore eyelids. Donnie hadn’t been expecting it, hissing suddenly in defense before relaxing...or maybe it was a sag of defeat, as he was always the one to keep his emotions and vulnerabilities well-guarded. He shook lightly, and Splinter did his best to smooth the jitters away with a caring hand on his shoulder. 

“Your brothers and I are here with you, my son. We’ll always be here, even if you can’t see us...” He watched Donnie shift down in the nest as he removed the pack from his eyes. The cooling sensation seemed to help Donnie relax a bit more after his brief night terror. On the floor, the boys had fallen sound asleep. Mikey had curled himself up into a kitten-like ball, nestled against Leo’s plastron. The younger twin had the box turtle wrapped tightly against him, chin resting on the dark green scales on his head. Raph, always the big spoon, had an arm draped around the other two. A soft but rumbling snore matched the rise and fall of the leader’s jagged shell. 

The sick softshell managed to barely crack one eye open, the sclera around his iris bloodshot. His father met his singular gaze with a soft but anxious smile. Donnie took in a breath and exhaled a long soft whine. The look in his eye was dull…and tired…weak and grey. Splinter knew that his son was so very tired. The rat knelt down, pressing a soft kiss to his son’s head for a few seconds. 

“Every day you wake up again is a triumph, Donatello… Hang on for just a little while longer, this will pass, and you will emerge stronger in spirit.” Another long soft whine was his answer, and his son closed his eye again, exhaustion overcoming him quickly. Before it swept him away, the turtle gently nestled his head into Splinter’s lap, hands balling up into the fabric of the old robe. The father obliged, curling up around him like a mother cat would curl up around her newborn kit. Both of their breaths evened out in slumber…almost. 

\---

\---

\---

A breath hitched in Donnie’s throat and he coughed again. His hands trembling, they balled up even tighter into Splinter’s robe…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy new decade! Sorry for the wait! I was a little stuck with this one ^^ Things should pick up pretty soon ^^
> 
> Always appreciating your guys' support! Every comment helps push me forward!!
> 
> <3


	7. *Text Message Sounds*

“O’Neil...” the purple haired tech club president tossed her beret about before sliding into the seat next to April’s. She propped one leg over the other, reclining back on the lab table with her elbows square. It was about as stereotypical “edgy bastard” as you could get posture wise without being sent to the principal. April decided to ignore her, actually making an attempt to distract herself in her textbook. Kendra was content in just sitting there, an endless smirk on her face as she side-eyed her. 

Class droned on as per usual, but it was nearing the end, thank god. The sooner April could get away from her criminal classmate, the better. Kendra had resorted to casually fiddling with her ankle cuff, but her eyes never left April’s form, and it was starting to get to her. As the bravest in her little adopted family, April didn’t like it when her anxiety spiked.

The bell finally rang. Ms. Frazzle took a sip of her coffee, dropping a stack of empty assignment sheets on her desk along with study guides for the finals, and proceeded to walk right out, straight for the teachers’ lounge to nurse a migraine. 

April ejected herself from her seat, but she came to an abrupt stop within the sea of students filing out into the hallway. Kendra had a death grip on her arm, long purple nails digging into the fabric of her jacket. 

“Leaving me so soon, Apes?” She wrenched her closer to her, close enough to April to see the details of her blood red lipstick and smell the shoddy perfume the Purple dragon had practically bathed in. Donnie, ever smell sensitive as he was, had said it made his eyes water, and he was right. “We have so much to catch up on, just the two of us...”

* * *

  
April choked as she was slammed against a locker, the collar of her coat scruffed in Kendra’s talons. The dragon’s eyes glinted like daggers as she pushed with more force. The teen could feel the grooves of the locker vent digging into her spine. She was two seconds away from bitchslapping the shit out of Kendra to hell and back again if not for two little problems.

One factor involved Jeremy and Jason taking up their leader’s flanks. She was pinned from all sides, with the other two egging it on. Another problem was that this would be the absolute worst time to get detention in any form. Despite the fact that the purple dragons had felony charges, April had no doubt that Kendra could sweet talk the faculty into pinning the blame on her for assault instead of self-defense. How else would she have been able to secure massive school funding for a tech club with only three members?

She was not about to dig herself a hole she couldn’t get out of, Donnie needed every ounce of support he could get. She just needed to grit and bear it. Another slam with her head smashing against the cold steel yanked out a low growl from her throat. 

“That upset about getting yer toys taken away?” April grinned with a strangled breath. “Just gonna throw a tantrum like the little bitch babies you are?” 

“What’d you say?!” Jeremy guffawed and Kendra stamped on his sneaker, and he stifled a yelp. 

“Shut it, Jer. What I believe April meant to say-,” the girl’s head rolled around so that her eyes could lock with her victim. She lightly blew a lock of hair away from her face with a devious smirk, “-was that she’s happy to see us too, and very eager to hear what we have to say...”

“I don’t know, it really sounded like she called us babies.” Jason said genuinely puzzled.

“Oh my FUCKING god Jace, shut the fuck up, you are the STUPIDEST person on this earth, you know that?!”

“Sorry, Kendra.”

“Now… if you’re both done INTERRUPTING ME-,” She grit her teeth and the two boys shied back a smidge. Almost instantly, she returned to her attempts at suave intimidation, but April had long since stopped taking any of this act seriously and was checking her phone again, scrolling with her thumb. “HEY!” She back-handed April’s wrist, causing her phone to clatter to the floor, “Don’t fucking ignore me!” 

April gasped and snarled, pushing back against Kendra, bowling her into Jeremy and Jason. “You’re gonna regret doing that…” She snapped, frantically scooping up her cellular device and scanning it over for damage. Thankfully the case was only lightly cracked, and almost immediately she checked her messages again. 

The purple dragons shook off the shove fairly quickly, and Kendra huffed in annoyance. “What’s got you so worked up over there, Apes? Got some place you need to be? You look near ready to run home crying to your mom.” 

“It’s none of your business.” April glowered, picking up her school bag again. 

“Jesus, chill out, it was just a turtle…” She looked down at her nails, rubbing them against her satin jacket to get them nice and shiny.

“…” April O’Neil froze in place, pupils shrunk down to the size of pinpricks. She said nothing, only slowly glancing behind her, glaring murderous daggers at the three techies. They were caught off guard by the aura she exuded.

Kendra doubled-took and cleared her throat, “The lab turtle, April, at least I heard it was a turtle, sure as hell smelled like one.” She dug her hands in her pockets and rolled her shoulders. 

The yellow jacketed teen had to pull every ounce of herself together to keep her eyes from watering in front of these hacks. She sucked in a harsh breath and forced it back out through her clenched jaws. She began to walk away again without a word, her shoes squeaking lightly against the mopped tile floor, only to stop and turn again at the sound of a gasp.

Kendra dramatically brought a hand to her mouth, “Oh…that’s right…” She smiled, “There was that dreadful bombing on the news the other day! Don’t you remember, guys?”

“In fact, I do, Kendra.” Jeremy snickered, “Didn’t Othello take a belly flop off the top floor?”

“Stop.” April whispered.

“Not sure…the thing was so mangled up, I could hardly recognize the face, but no other freak in all of New York would wear THAT much purple with THAT shade of green. So, it probably was him.”

“Yikes…and on national TV too…Mega fail…”

“Stop it!” April let a tear slide as her anger grew. The dragons smirked at her and her weakness.

“Musta’ hurt pretty bad.” Kendra mused.

“I will admit though, the fact that he survived was pretty metal. The guy’s a monster.” 

Jason popped forward, adjusting his glasses, “I bet he was Othello von CRYIN’!”

Kendra and Jeremy looked at him with absolute disgust. “Jason…” she growled.

“Dude…seriously, stop talking before she actually kills you.”

“Sorry…”

“That is the worst thing to have ever come outta your pie-hole”

“Shutting up now.” He squeaked, squeezing back to his rightful place.

Kendra turned back to April again, who was furiously rubbing her eyes with her sleeve. “So…did he live?”

“I have to get to class…”

Kendra cornered her again, “Did he…or did he not?”

“What’s it matter to you?” April growled in the lead dragon’s face. 

“Am I not allowed to be concerned about the wellbeing of our greatest enemy?” Her eyes sparkled and she leaned over onto one foot, “Besides if he did kick the bucket, we can just take his tech off your hands. I doubt neither you nor his ‘_dumb-dumb_’ brothers would be able to appreciate it or even know how to use it. It’s be a waste, otherwise.” She used physical air quotes around the familiar insult, likely having heard it from Donnie during his brief stint as one of their members. 

“He’s. Alive.” She uttered through her teeth. This was stupid, and dumb, and they didn’t deserve any more of her energy. “He’s going to make a swift recovery. He’ll be back out there, thwarting your hacks before you can even blink.” 

Kendra only let out a light chuckle, rolling her eyes, “With a fall like that, I’d doubt it…but whatever you say…” She rolled her shoulders with a shrug, the satin on her jacket reflecting the lights above them. “Personally, I’d be worried about more than that, since he’s not the only one in trouble, y’know.” 

April was taken aback by that, “W-What do you mean?”

**_tch tch tch…_** Kendra turned her back and waved her finger in the air for April to see, “You weren’t very nice today, so I don’t feel like saying more. Best get off to class.” The bell rang over the intercom, and the three started to walk away.

“W-Wait!”

“Conspiracies are becoming reality, O’Neil…better get yourself educated…you know…to keep yourself _safe_.”

They disappeared around the next corner, leaving April alone in the empty school hallway. Her eyes darted this way and that, deep in thought. Curiously, she pulled out her phone, and began typing into her search bar.

* * *

  
Raph sat quietly on the floor, having lost interest in trying to figure out his Rubix cube again. He thought maybe if he had managed to solve it, he could show Donnie and maybe make him smile. But who was he kidding? Dee had given him that puzzle seven years ago, and he had yet to be able to figure it out and was too stubborn to look up the solution. One day…but not today…

He decided to instead focus on his breathing exercises, having destroyed some of his equipment earlier that day. It wasn’t ever good when he tensed up from messy bottled up feelings and lost control of his strength. He’d worked with his dad for too long to lose it now. Besides…Donnie was gonna be fine. He wouldn’t believe anything stating the otherwise. Meditation often felt very boring, but when it concerned things like this, it was much easier to stay focused. With his legs crossed and his six fingers laced together, he centered himself, focusing on the rhythm of his diaphragm expanding and contracting. Up and down… In and out… The tide rises…the tide falls… 

His mind started to float away from him, entering a near sleep like trance. His head swayed slightly, but he continued to breathe, and then he swallowed. The thoughts returned again, and he began to fidget, lightly brushing his fingertips over his big boned wrists. 

_It was you._

His fist tightened around his wrist.

_It was all because of you._

“No.” He muttered quietly, his head starting to pulse.

_If you weren’t like this, he wouldn’t have fallen. _

“…I can’t control that…Raph’s perfect the way he is…”

_He wouldn’t be sick_. 

“We couldn’t have stopped that…” Raph’s eyes cracked open, and he glanced down at his limbs, seeing that they were being squeezed so tight that they were turning blue and going numb.

_He wouldn’t be dying._

“Go away, Mind Raph… Donnie won’t die…he won’t…” 

_What kind of leader goes around getting their men broken? What kind of brother lets this happen?_

He finally released his own hands, bringing them up to clutch his temples and grit his sharp teeth.

_What kind of brother lets this happen **again**?_

A sudden piercing tone made Raph jump and squeal. He was on his feet in half a second, only calming when he felt a material vibrating next to his toes. He sighed, stressed, realizing he had almost squashed his Shellcell. He checked it, finding a short text from April. She wasn’t supposed to be on her phone during school, but he would take any distraction at the moment. 

His shoulders sagged a bit. Apparently, Taylor Martin, that one popular girl at her school, had talked her into homework help over the weekend. Raph would never quite understand why winning the approval of this girl would mean anything to April…but then again, his brothers didn’t understand why he loved Ghostbear so much. To put it lightly, that Taylor girl was just…mean…and shallow…at least Ghostbear could kick ass. April could outshine the blonde any day of the week. Regardless, she was pressured into helping and wouldn’t be able to plan around it to get back to the Lair to help take care of Donnie while they went on medicine runs. 

He texted her back that everything would be okay, and that he’d keep her updated on Donnie’s condition…speaking of which…

Raph peeked out of his room and glanced at the purple glow softly pouring from Donnie’s room. He hadn’t heard any respiratory distress in a while, which could be a good or a bad thing…don’t think about that. He sighed, twiddling his thumbs, fumbling with the urge to check on him and the urge to finally let him rest soundly. 

The snapper stood there quietly while pondering before he perked up at the soft whine of several thrusters. S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N. with his wings sagging, floated gently out from Donnie’s chamber, before promptly drifting to one of Leo’s beanbags and coming in for a slow and sad landing. He rested his CPU into the cushion, his limbs spreading out, like usual, and he let out a low exhaust through his vents. 

Concerned, Raph moseyed over to him, not exactly trying to sneak, and he crouched next to the purple drone. “Shelldon? You okay, buddy?”

“Not really…” He whirred.

“Do you wanna talk about it? Is Donnie doing okay?” 

“Yeah…actually. Dee’s condition is stable, not spectacular but he hasn’t gotten any worse, so…” He paused, running a few numbers in the back of his core processor, “His neural activity’s been high for a while.”

Raph smiled softly, “Well that’s good. Genius mind still at work.”

“Yeah…maybe.” 

“Is there…something wrong?” Raph cocked a brow, worry steadily rising.

“Nah man, not with Donnie. I mean-like-besides _everything_. I-I mean-,” he sighed again, “He’s fine…I just like, feel pretty cruddy, bro…” 

The older snapper sat down crisscross applesauce on the floor, “I’m not really great with feelings like Dr. Feelings is but-,” He gently picked up the drone by his sides and sat Shelldon in his lap. “Tell Uncle Raph what’s on your mind.”

“It’s stupid…”

“Nothin’s stupid, Shelldon. Do ya got like- a malfunction or something that Donnie can’t fix right now?”

“No. System diagnostic checks out, next update’s not scheduled for a couple more months.”

“Okay…well then, what’s the problem?”

“…” 

“…”

Raph rubbed him lightly behind one of his many ears. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t really want to, Shell-,”

“We had a fight.” He said quietly.

“Who? You?”

“Me and Donnie, before you guys like…left the next morning, before…” He wiggled one of his wings, “All of this bull.” He rested his chin on Raph’s knee, “It was over something…completely stupid…I don’t really even remember what it was. I was still mad, so I went out flying for a day to cool off…and then I came back and…” he trailed off. Raph cast a side eye over to Donnie’s room again and sympathetically stroked Shelldon’s chassis.

“Right…”

“I check in on him and his vitals every now and then, but I just don’t know what to do, big R. The last thing I did was yell and cuss binary at him and now he’s like this…” The drone covered his optics with his servos. “I’m the worst…”

“Shelldon, that’s not true.” Raph held him up in the air by the undersides of his wings. “You’re not mad anymore, right?”

“No…” he whined quietly in reply.

“Then you should just apologize. I’m sure Donnie’s not gonna have a lot of energy to focus on that silly argument you two had.”

“But Raph, he’s never conscious, and when he is, he’s barely there…what if I don’t get the chance to…?” his body wilted a little in Raph’s hands. 

The snapper shook his head vigorously, “He’s going to be okay. He’s not gonna give up, and neither should we. Trust me kiddo,” He pulled Shelldon into a gentle hug, “-your pop’s gonna power through.” 

Shelldon accepted the hug but only cast his eyes softly to the side. “I’m uh…” He pulled away lightly, tapping his winglets together. “I’m gonna go check on him again…make sure he’s resting alright…We’re running low on his enrofloxacin.”

“Yeah…” Raph mumbled, “We’ll put that on the list…” He couldn’t make heads or tails of all those long Donnie words, but he was sure either Splinter or Shelldon would get a list put together for the supply run. His eyes trailed after the little turtle drone flying away before looking up at the skylight above the lair, hearing the faint shrill bellow of a couple of police car sirens. Things were getting more tense out there…

* * *

  
S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N.’s bright fuchsia optics lit up the dark lab a smidge. He peeked shyly over the rim of Donnie’s berth. Just like before, the softshell was facing away from the screens and towards the wall, his breathing soft and not peppered with the usual snores that the drone was accustomed to tuning out when he was docked at his charging port. He decided to run another scan, soft beams of light gliding smoothly over his creator’s body up and then back down. A flurry of lines of code and numbers lit up on his hub, ranging from blood cell counts, antibiotic resistance, as of course, brainwave fluctuations. Most of everything had plateaued over the past twelve hours. Shelldon was micrometers from relaxing and believing that maybe, just maybe, the worst of it was over, that they were over the hill like hump day and heading in for an easy weekend. But…it just wasn’t logical to assume that until more data was collected, and more time passed. He was getting fed up with this sad mood in the lair, it just wasn’t how he rolled. 

Looking back at Donnie again, he hovered over to get a look at his face. He pretty consistently had a warm wet towel draped over his eyes. Mikey had gone ahead and made some adhesive tape eyebrows to put on all the wraps. They knew how much Donnie loved his own expressions. The crinkles of the damp cotton fabric switched slightly. If Shelldon had to hazard a guess, Donnie’s eyes and eyelids were twitching in response to a rather eventful or involved dream. His limbs also fidgeted, the fingers on his good arm clenching repeatedly. The turtle shifted, nestling further into his pillows. 

The drone let a rush of cool air cycle through his vents, before turning and accessing Donnie’s systems. So many errors and emails to comb through and so little time…or well, he guessed there wasn’t much else he could do to pass the quiet hours in the sewers, other than lighten Donnie’s workload as much as possible. It wasn’t very exciting, but it was something only he could do, so he may as well do it…

* * *

  
…

…

…

_Donnie…_

…

It was dark, and the little boy shivered as he adjusted his large and clunky glasses on his face. It was hard to balance them on the bridge of his small beak without ears to anchor them. His baggy sleeve got in the way a bit, and the humidity of the deep sewer fogged up the lenses. He slid them off his face and looked out from the little pipe he had squeezed into, blurry vision not catching any bright colors against the murky walls. He wiped the condensation off his glasses and eased them back on before tucking his knees against his chest as he continued to wait. 

…

…

_Donniiiieee! _

_King DeeDeeDeeeeee! Where arree yoooouu?_

…

“Restrained evil snicker…” Donnie whispered to himself, scooting further into the tight space while trying to hold in his little giggles. His dummy-dumb-dumb brothers would never find him in this perfect hiding spot. He had taken a couple of turns before tucking into a pipe inside of another pipe. It was brilliant, brilliant, BRILLIANT! The other three weren’t as smart as him! They were all simple-minded and clumsy. He was gonna win this game for sure!

A few more minutes passed, and then a few more minutes passed. 

…

…

_Donnie! Please come out! We give up!_

…

The little boy smirked triumphantly but shook his head. The game wasn’t finished. They couldn’t just give up looking, they HAD to find him. It was hide and seek. He hid, now they had to seek. So, he stayed put and waited…feeling a shiver run up his spine from his soft shell squishing against the damp wall behind him.

…

…

…

_Leo…Raphie…I’m hungryyy, I wanna go back home!_

_Mikey’s right, I’m bored now. I wanna go ride my skateboard!_

_We gotta find Donnie first! _

_He’s not coming out, Raph. He knows the way home, let’s just go._

…

Wait…what?

…

_I don’t know…but I am also getting’ pretty hungry…_

_There are tater tots back home!_

_YEAH TATER TOTS!_

_The two voices began to chant together, TATER TOTS!! TATER TOTS!!_

_Well…okay… Donnie we’re going home! Meet us back there okay?! C’mon guys, let’s go get some POE-TAY-TOES!!_

_YAAAAAYYY!!! TATER TOTS! TATER Tots…tater tots!…tat-er t-ots!…ta-er -ots…_

…

A flurry of footsteps faded away into silence as Donnie sat dumbfounded as to what had just happened. He peeked out again, only hearing the soft dripping of sewer water dripping from the ceiling. Ripples of water reflections danced along the cylindrical walls. 

He felt a skittering sensation run up his shell and he squealed in horror, barreling out of the pipe and nearly tumbling into the river as he watched in disgust as a cockroach dashed away from underneath his hoodie. “EW EW EW EWWW EWWEWWW!!!” He almost started to cry and started shaking, his adrenaline sky high, “EWW EWW oh my god…eww *sniffle* eww…” 

That’s it…time to go home…

Why weren’t his legs moving?

Despite the fact that his knees were shaking like mad, he seemed to be stuck, tiny feet now rooted into the ground. He tried to yank one forward but fell backwards onto his shell, a sharp sting running up his neck. “OW!” There was no stopping the pained tears pulled out with that one. 

** _SNAP_ **

Whatwasthat?!

His eyes darted around, realizing that his glasses had fallen off his face. He half-hazardly pawed around the cobblestone floor but he couldn’t find them, for they had fallen down a ledge next to him far out of reach for his stumpy little grub arms. 

Heavier footsteps and warbled voices began to echo off the walls, voices he didn’t recognize. He tried to flip himself over but a harsh stabbing pain in his chest effectively pinned him onto the floor. He called for help. 

“RAPH! LEO! MIKEY! I’M HERE! COME BACK! HELP ME!!”

But no-one came…

His gaze jutted upward towards the ceiling, seeing a shadow tower over him. A long and thick rope, (or a vine) wrapped around his neck, cutting off his gasp of air. His hands flew to the vine, trying fruitlessly to yank it off. He felt sharp pebbles dig into his hoodie covered shell as he felt his weight being dragged along by the base of his skull, the material of the noose digging into the soft scale less flesh. He kicked and struggled, seeing the shadow fade into a dark void. He was being pulled away from home, away from his family!

“D-daddy!” he gasped, lungs feeling empty and burning. In a fit of fear and anger, he gritted through the pain and twisted, the line becoming tighter before snapping as he fell off the ledge. He expected to hit water, but he kept falling, down

down

dooowwwnn…

His eyes squeezed shut, his wail being drowned out as he fell.

His body flailed and his managed to crack his eyes open and got a glimpse of the ground beneath him.

* * *

  
Shelldon nearly short circuited at the sharp gasp behind him. “Donnie?!”

His creator spasmed in his bed, before another gasp and a sharp raspy “**_FUCK!_**” wheezed out from his lungs. He clutched his chest, hyperventilating through waves of pain coursed through him. 

Shelldon was on him in a second, taking a few harsh grapples from Donnie’s good hand to keep him from tearing the bandages off. The soft shell was in a panic and had nearly crushed some of the drone’s circuitry. “Donnie, chill out, bro, it’s just me, Shelldon!”

“Sh-ShShuh…” Donnie rasped out, still breathing hard.

“That’s right, it’s me! You’re home, you’re safe! I’m here, Donnie.” He brushed his cranium along the underside of the turtle’s chin. He let out a few clicks and beeps, his callsign that Donnie had programmed into his software version 2.5. 

Slowly…Donnie calmed, reaching a shaky hand up and brushing a thumb over his beloved drone’s little head. Sensing familiarity, he scratched him behind the ears. “-m…I’m sorry, buddy…did I…hurt you?” 

Shelldon couldn’t hold back a spark of exasperated laughter, “Nah brah…it’s cool, y’scared me good though…”

“Sorry…”

“…I’m the one who should say that…I was a total jerk and I wasn’t even here when they brought you back home…”

“Easy, bud…” Donnie sighed, “I don’t even remember what…the squabble was about…”

“Ditto, Dee.” His fans hummed softly, and he rested beside Donnie, powering down his thrusters. 

“It…doesn’t matter…I forgive you…”

“Really?”

“Two ‘reallys’…” He muttered back quietly, his cheek leaning on Shelldon’s frame. 

The drone chittered cheerfully, nuzzling closer to Donnie. Numbers flashed a bit on his screen. The soft-shell’s energy was exhausted again, but a curious figure caught his attention. He did the calculations in his head, doubled and then triple checked them. “Hey Donnie…”

“Mm?” He was going to pass out again any second now. 

“Your blood cell count is rising…and your lungs…they sound…clear.”

“Mmm?” 

“I think you beat it, Donnie.” Lubricant began to leak from the drone’s optics, “You’re gonna be okay, Pa…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Omg I am so sorry y'all XD
> 
> School is a BITCH
> 
> BUT I'm almost COMPLETELY DONE!
> 
> Just a couple more weeks and I can focus on my personal stuff all together!
> 
> Thanks for sticking' with me and I hope the next chapter will be done a lot sooner!


	8. Celery Sticks (To Be Continued...?)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey...
> 
> 2020 am I right? XD
> 
> So it's been a hot second, about 6ish months, and this hell year is almost at an end with... HOPEFULLY better things to come in 2021...hopefully.  
I mean I got a job, on an animated show no less, so like, that sounds like a pretty nice start to me XD Wish me luck!  
I wish you all the best of luck in your endeavors in the coming new year as well ^^
> 
> But speaking of which, it is time, my beloved readers, to gather 'round as I break the sad news...
> 
> I will not be continuing this fic, BUT DON'T CLICK OFF YET, I got a lot more to say XD (and obviously there's something in the chapter section so like...keep reading)
> 
> So over the past few months, I've put a lot of thought into stepping into the role of an adult. I've fully graduated from SCAD with a BFA in Sequential Art. I'm getting more into freelance art commissions, putting my foot down and finally establishing prices for my work. Most importantly is learning how to properly budget my time, and at the moment, writing fanfiction does not fit into that schedule. On top of that, while I love our boys very much, I've naturally lost a lot of hype with rottmnt, as is natural with the death of any show. It'll probably flare up again with the movie but I'm no where near as passionate (or obsessed) as I used to be. I ran into a little bit of writers block (really I didn't know how to properly segway into future plot points and was stuck) with the intended next chapter and I just...never got back to it. 
> 
> Ultimately I don't want the fic sitting as a silent piling obligation anymore on top of the dozens of other projects I WANT to do. Out of all of them, this is the one I can reasonably, effectively, resolve and conclude in a time efficient manner. 
> 
> What I DID NOT want and WILL NOT be doing is abandoning you all. We've all been there, it sucks, I've done it before a long time ago and I will not be doing it ever again. You guys will be getting the end of the story, right here, right now, just not in the traditional way you all would expect. 
> 
> For once in my life I was not dumb and I actually planned ahead and wrote down an actual outline for the remaining plot beats for the story. And I'm going to do my best to effectively write down an extended version of this outline for you all to read, along with added details and some of the themes I wanted to touch on during the production.
> 
> More importantly, I'm giving this story TO ALL OF YOU! To expand upon, to reinterpret, and to do with as you please. I thought about adopting out this fic but I didn't want to run into the chance of it being abandoned again outside of my own control. So we're doing it like this.
> 
> I want to inspire you all to utilize your own creativity! Challenge yourself, write, draw, create, take the story in a completely different direction if you aren't satisfied. I just want you all to have fun and to hopefully extend this story into the fully bloomed and developed flower it deserved to be. 
> 
> And if not, at least you will all have the full story, in some form, and I do hope you guys do like and enjoy some of the ideas I had.
> 
> I'll have more information in the end notes, so I encourage you all to read those as well. 
> 
> That all being said, lets get into the rest of our SOB story ^^

Let’s start with some of the set up from the previous chapter:

\-----

Kendra was brought in to spice up some of April’s side of the chapters and to introduce the EVIL THREAT looming in the background…

Who is this EVIL THREAT?! …Hell if I knew XD I didn’t get that far. 

This threat would be a human one, likely an organized subsidiary of the military, potentially coupled with an experimental science division, but beyond that I didn’t really have any ideas beyond introducing conflict into the story to make it more exciting near the end. 

I do know that Kendra was going to introduce them to April by implying that she do some digging, and April would stumble on Baxter Stockboy’s channel, finding him doing some EXPOSED videos on the turtles, given Donnie’s fall in Times Square and the other brothers’ recent burglaries in various establishments, caught on cameras that Donnie might otherwise have disabled prior to his accident. This would imply that the public still had the turtle mutant monster threat on their minds, tying into more of those xenophobic tendencies that are more realistic to the real world but not necessarily canon compliant in the show. This would be followed by highlights of the government deploying teams to New York City to launch an investigation. 

\-----

At the same time, April was going to have a follow up event related to helping Taylor make up for the missed dissection lab in class. April would go to Taylor’s house, be made uncomfortable by all of the stereotypical trappings of a “Heather Chandler” sort of character and how they would decorate their living space, and then be subsequently HORRIFIED! This is because Taylor is the worst, since she bought a LIVE turtle from the pet store to be killed and dissected in her own bedroom. Obviously, April would never let this happen, would punch Taylor square in the jaw before yeeting herself out the window, turtle in hand, and booking it to the Lair. 

The turtle was gonna be affectionately named Bernini <3

\-----

Donnie was gonna have another set of night terrors during his recovery, although I didn’t really have a set place for these to go. Ultimately, they would all share the same theme of ISOLATION, if you hadn’t caught on to the theme of his recurring PTSD already. Donnie’s fear throughout the story is tied to his self-sacrifice attempt in Times Square, and the consequences of his decision. While it was a selfless choice, it’s unrealistic to expect that a child would be mentally satisfied while sacrificing themselves for their family. That shit is scary, and also, he’s facing potential death. The worst bit was the feeling of loneliness that Donnie experienced while crushed into the car he landed on. With how affectionate and group oriented the boys are and always have been, it would make sense that Donnie may experience these panic induced episodes when he’s cut off from all contact from all of his brothers. 

In this event specifically I wanted all of the brothers to be in a little cuddle pile together because that shit is cute, and we wouldn’t have really had a scene with all of the brothers interacting together since before the accident in the first chapter. 

\-----

The next three events would take place chronologically over a long period of time, like a few weeks to a few months, long enough to realistically let Donnie recover to a fully independent mobile state, and also to allow the military group to settle and conduct their initial investigation. 

I wanted each brother to have a one-on-one interaction with Donnie to help actively participate in his recovery, similar to how I gave each of them an individual scene to show how they were coping with the aftermath of the fall itself. 

First up was Mikey, who I set up a few chapters ago by introducing the epoxy that Leo and Raph stole. For real life cases of shell rot and shell fractures in turtles, they need a water-tight seal to prevent infection from water contamination, and this is commonly accomplished with patches of resin or epoxy. Mikey was going to paint and color-match this patch so it would blend seamlessly with Donnie’s plastron. 

With Donnie’s direction, he was also going to help Shelldon customize a new supportive battle shell to help reinforce stability in Donnie’s torso and ribcage, which for safety reasons, would likely be a permanent fixture for the remainder of Donnie’s life. Similar to a metal implants to help mend broken bones, they’re not removed after surgery, and are permanent. Donnie can just take it off, but he will always have to wear it. 

\-----

Next up is Leo’s event. His job would be to help his brother support his own weight and begin walking again, since they’re close in height. Donnie would probably shift from Leo to using his tech bo as a walking stick. Leo’s the right kind of annoying to help goad Donnie into chasing him around the Lair and getting him to use his legs to rebuild and redevelop some of his muscles that have atrophied. 

\-----

Supporting your own weight is one thing, lifting additional baggage and regaining structural support in your body to shift your center of gravity while carrying extra weight is another. That’s where Raph comes in. Utilizing his penchant for working out and developing his core muscles seemed like a perfect way to help Donnie with his rehabilitation.   
Since the injury is located right where Donnie’s core muscles would be, this would likely be the most difficult part of his recovery. Raph is gentle and encouraging, and probably the most patient with Donnie’s naturally incessant complaining, even if he knows in his mind that the physical therapy is wholly necessary. 

\-----

More night terrors because we LOOOOOOOVE ANGSTTT. Obligatory sleepover in the living room chilling out and watching Lou Jitsu movies. Basically, it’s the cutest shit you’ve ever seen or read. For Donnie, things are finally starting to feel like they might begin to return to normal. He just needs time to work through his emotions and, after everything, feels open to discussing his emotions with everyone, or potentially getting himself some therapy if he can come up with a good enough story for online consultation. 

He also begins drafting up inventions again, deciding to start focusing on adapting to his circumstances and embracing the challenge of beating his limitations. *COUGHS IN FORESHADOWING*

\-----

Once Donnie deems himself fully recovered, Splinter is, understandably, not convinced, and likely still rattled from the accident. Donnie is barred from leaving the Lair to accompany the rest of the Mad Dogz on patrol. There’s not much Donnie can do to argue, especially since the other three tentatively agree with what Splinter has to say. This leaves Donnie feeling a little hurt that his brothers would still keep him cooped up despite all the encouragement they’ve given him over the length of his recovery. To be honest, everyone’s still a little shaken, even if they don’t say it out loud.

He decides to push down his feelings and toss himself into his work, since he’s got so much free time to himself now, alone in the Lair. But his PTSD isolation-triggered anxiety gets the better of him, and he sets up a system to monitor everyone and do reconnaissance in an Oracle type of fashion. Everyone really starts to vibe with this, and even light discussion gets thrown around to keep things this way, since it’s been so effective. Although, they tend to frequently forget that Donnie is always watching and listening, and this discussion further entrenches his feeling of hurt concerning how he feels about the situation, poor boy. 

\-----

A few days later, Donnie finishes up his role in reconnaissance while the boys are on patrol again and decides, matter-of-factly, that the others can handle themselves. He throws on a sweatshirt and decides, emotions and mental illness be damned, he needs out of the Lair, and to feel the sun on his skin. 

He shamelessly lures Splinter into eating milk and cake and dips out, heading to April’s to hang out and help curb his anxiety a little bit. He lets out some of his frustrations with April and the two share a heart to heart together, with another cameo by Bernini the turtle. (The reason why April has not been as present is because she got in big trouble for punching Taylor in the face and her parents decided to keep her home, given they believe her skipping school is a result of her “going down the wrong path”, and she’s just barely managed to suck up to them enough at this point to let her off the hook and give her a little more freedom again.) 

Their conversation is interrupted by an explosion halfway across town, followed by a blackout across the city, cutting off cell reception. With the help of Mayhem, they travel to the source in record time through a series of blinks, and find the boys’ discarded weapons, along with the actual dead corpse of the eel mutant from the first chapter, because he didn’t die the first time around.

\-----

Donnie, April, and Mayhem return to the Lair for gear, but Splinter catches them. The auxiliary power kicks on and the Oracle system has shorted out, leaving only a few jumbled coordinates as a last known location for Raph, Leo, and Mikey, but it’s clear that there was a struggle, and that they were captured. Donnie is insistent that they immediately leave to search but Splinter has had it with Donnie and grounds him, refusing to lose another child. He instructs April to keep an eye on him and leaves on his own. 

April doesn’t bat an eye and obviously will let Donnie go (and she’ll stall Splinter for time), but they need a plan. A good one, off brand for the Mad Dogz since there’s a well-thought-out plan. 

Remember that foreshadowing from earlier? Here it is, that big project that Donnie was working on that I was kinda surprised never really ended up in the show. He basically repurposes most of his tech, including Shelldon to bind it all together, into a big metal exo-suit. Basically, he suits up like Ironman. My idea for designing this thing was that it would be loosely inspired by mecha-anime and would take design inspirations from soft shell turtles in that it would have a snoot, except it kind of ended up looking like a dragon, and it was a little bulky looking, which was the point, but I just didn’t care for how my attempt at drawing a design was turning out personally. The one detail I was sold on was that It would have dual retractable fists that materialized and transformed like the rocket fists on his tech bo, and thus he himself could pull off rocket punches using thrusters on the suits elbows or something. Rule of cool basically XD. It would also be able to fly with much larger circular Vulture-looking wing turbines. 

\-----

Donnie’s able to use the remnants of the eel mutant to track down its current location, which he traces to the warehouses on the docks. He eventually finds the mutant, but he’s dead. Not to mention, his body’s not the only one present.   
The scene is a bloodbath with bodies of soldiers and scientists everywhere, currently being swarmed by government agents while Donnie observes from a skylight. Several containment units are also present but destroyed. Thankfully, his brothers are nowhere to be seen, but it’s very apparent that they were here briefly, but taken somewhere else, by something or someone else separate from this group.

He overhears muttering from the agents about how the threat had been neutralized by this eel’s destructive rampage, but he realizes that can’t possibly be true, since the eel mutant’s data placed his death at the time of the explosion, not afterwards. It was likely that, similar to the generator from the first chapter, that the eel’s body had partially imploded, and then exploded from all the contained energy within. The group could have utilized the eel as a means to lure his brothers into the open and incapacitate them with the explosion, only then to dump the body of the eel afterwards at the scene or assume that it had merely destroyed itself. If that was the case, however, how could the eel be in the warehouse? The body must have been planted to use as a decoy to ward off the government’s further intervening. To any outside party, it would be a clear open and shut investigation. The story would be the same, the only changed detail would have been that the original military group would have retrieved the eel, before it broke out of containment in the warehouse and slaughtered everyone. 

Whoever planted the body must have also taken his brothers, and it was likely that this person wasn’t human. He dispatches Shelldon to get a closer look at the scene, and remnants of all too familiar vines come into view. This killer’s MO was much more in line with Draxum’s fighting style than the eel’s penchant for air-frying. With a new lead, Donnie evacuates the scene, heading straight for the Hidden City.

\-----

Draxum did indeed “save” the boys, and kill all those dangerous humans. The scientist expects nothing less than gratitude for how he graciously saved his creations. He also hopes this experience will get through their thicker than average skulls that humans cannot be trusted, and that they will join his army against the human scourge. He’s also quite offended that the humans would dare try to tamper with his work. 

Obviously, even if the boys were shaken a bit by nearly experiencing their father’s worst nightmare, they’re not gonna turn their backs on New York and humanity. At the moment they’re all still heavily drugged up with tranquilizers, so they’re barely comprehending what Draxum has to say in the first place. The gargoyles take full advantage of the situation to have some funny gags. 

\----- 

Donnie does arrive to save his brothers, and suddenly realizes that this will be his first real fight since his injury, and it’s a one-on-one with Baron Draxum. This can only end well…right? At least he’s got the exo-suit.

During the fight, Draxum would say something like, “I thought you died…can’t say I’m impressed.”

He would likely taunt Donnie as they traded blows in a canon-typical flashy fight scene. Since Donnie can’t particularly maneuver fluidly, his fighting would be ranged and reliant on his tech rather than his bo, as Draxum would attempt to get in closer with sharp spearing jabs. 

In the midst of the fight, the brothers are trying feebly to fight the tranquilizer and regain control of their limbs. They notice that the fight is rendering the lab’s structure increasingly unstable, and that’s not good. The lab’s teetering on a tiny pillar in the middle of a massive seemingly bottomless ravine. This is fine…

Donnie seems to be holding up relatively well, all things considered. He manages to brush off Draxum’s banter about him being the weakest link in the group, and further stating that everything that happened has been his fault. Donnie doesn’t deny this statement, in fact he agrees wholeheartedly, to his brothers’ horror. He’s just not stupid enough to get distracted with internal monologue during a goddamn fight. Unlike Donnie, Draxum doesn’t realize that he’s been gradually and strategically steered into a corner. With one big final rocket punch, Draxum is sent flying into the final standing support pillar within the lab.

The force causes the pillar to collapse and the building crumbles into pieces. 

Draxum quickly relents and retreats through a portal, but now Donnie is facing a similar scenario to the first chapter, a second fall. His brothers are unable to save themselves and he needs to make a decision, quick, as they start to fall into the ravine. The fight has left his suit incredibly damaged, but some of its parts are detachable and still functioning. He has an opportunity to make the same self-sacrifice again, although this time he is certain that this fall will kill him without external protection. 

\-----

He hits the floor of the ravine, in his suit, cradling all his brothers close to him as they get buried in the lab’s wreckage. 

This isn’t…ideal, per say. His suit is completely totaled, they’re all buried and pinned by rocks, and no one knows where they are. But hey, he’s not dead, they all survived, silver lining and what not. 

So, we’ve brought everything full circle. Donnie feels like he should be mortified, having put himself in nearly the same position as before, but it’s not the same. He’s in excruciating pain, but he can feel his brothers’ hands tightening around his. They are helpless, but they are alone…together. He never wanted them to suffer, but the Mad Dogz should always stick together, that’s how it should have always been, and if that means dying together, then so be it. 

That’s worst-case scenario though, Shelldon has managed to squeeze his way out, and flies away to find help, but flying alone without any portal shortcuts could take hours. With nothing but time on their hands, the boys all begin talking through their feelings and about everything that’s happened in the story. Leo, Raph, and Mikey all apologize for not trusting Donnie to get back into patrolling with them, seeing that he had more than proved his capability in the fight with Draxum. They also drill him about his self-deprecation, geek about the fight and just begin talking random bro nonsense. A few hours in and it’s clear that the bloodloss is talking. 

Donnie can’t keep his eyes open anymore and falls asleep in the crushed remains of the suit. As far as he’s aware the others seem awake, but he’s actually the last to fall unconscious. 

\-----

He has a dream, but it’s filled with warmth and stability, no nightmares to be seen. He’s surrounded by others as well; they must be his brothers. The great being with golden eyes makes a brief return, (a childlike abstract manifestation of Lou Jitsu, the golden eyes being his golden glasses), before he’s shaken back to the reality of the waking world by his father. 

He and the others are back in the Lair, Shelldon had succeeded in getting April and Splinter. The latter had used Leo’s sword left behind to bring them back quickly. From what he can gather, everyone is clearly injured, but will likely make a recovery, including himself. 

Splinter is beside himself in all of the conflicted feelings a father would have in this situation, and he promptly grounds them all, to which they don’t argue. 

\-----

Aaaaand that’s the end, obligatory concluding paragraph, implied happy ending where everything theoretically goes back to normal, roll credits, FIN XD

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you all enjoyed this extended outline, and I hope you all were perhaps inspired XD
> 
> It feels really good to get this off my chest, and while writing this I felt a lot better about the interconnections with the story as a whole, since I don't feel like it was the best written. I still have a lot to learn and writing isn't even my main focus to begin with XD
> 
> With this, I encourage anyone who is interested to take any of these plot points and expand them. I've basically yeeted this literature child into the void, do your worst XD 
> 
> I'm already appreciative of all the fanart I received over the course of the story, even if it was only a few pieces. It completely blew my mind that anyone would make fan creations of something I had written. I feel like that only happens to very lucky people XD
> 
> So...thank you all...so so much, for reading, commenting, or supporting me at all, it means the world to me ^^
> 
> The only thing I ask is that if anyone does do anything, that you either tag the work you do in a comment or message me on any of my social medias.
> 
> Twitter: K_Cookie_Brooke  
Tumblr: Cookie-Brooke  
Insta: k_cookie_brooke  
DA: Cookie-Brooke
> 
> I would be happy to update this with links to all the work being done, so that everyone can enjoy it ^^
> 
> Ultimately, I don't know if I'll return to writing fanfiction. I don't want to say I won't, bc I don't like talking in absolutes, and I also enjoy writing it a lot. Again, I just don't have time, especially with the new job. 
> 
> So it's a tentative maybe...but probably not anytime soon, not unless something crazy happens idk. 
> 
> Real quick before I go, I wanna talk about the chapter title.  
So a running gag with the chapter titles was that I originally intended for each one to be a sound that bones make, in the form of an onomatopoeia...
> 
> ...there's not a lot of onomatopoeias that bones can make without sounding stupid XD So I switched it to thematic onomatopoeias in general relating to each chapter, but the one I was most excited for was Celery Sticks. 
> 
> If you didn't know, sound artists on sound stages will often take a couple of celery stalks and twist them. The cracking of all the stalks snapping apart creates this crystal clear and chunky sound that is often used as a sound effect for breaking bones in movies and tv. 
> 
> Here's a few other chapter titles I intended on using eventually:
> 
> -Ka-thunk  
-Keysmash  
-White Noise  
-Static  
-Scitter Scatter  
-Splurt
> 
> You can see how some of them can sound a little goofy XD
> 
> But yeah...that's it, I guess. I'll definitely be hanging around and working hard. If you wanna see bits of what I've got going on in terms of art, you can check the socials above, I love you all!
> 
> HOT SOUP AND ARRIVEDERCI!!!
> 
> Sincerely, 
> 
> Alari
> 
> AKA: Cookie-Brooke 
> 
> <3<3<3

**Author's Note:**

> My first fan fiction in probably...7 years I think ^^  
Rottmnt deserves so much more love than its got, please support the show any way you can!  
Hopefully more soon! I have no idea how long this might turn out.


End file.
